---
title: "General Syntax of DELETE"
url: https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/zcql/delete/
description: "ZCQL is Catalyst's own query language modelled after familiar query languages that you can use to query your app's database efficiently."
last_updated: 2023-08-28T12:42:09Z
service: Cloud Scale
type: general
---

# DELETE

### General Syntax of DELETE

The `DELETE` command enables you to delete one or more records from a table permanently. You can indicate the records to be deleted using the [`WHERE` clause](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cloud-scale/help/zcql/where/), which is explained in the next section, and specify the conditions.

The general syntax of a basic `DELETE` statement is as follows:

```sql
DELETE FROM {BASE_TABLE_NAME}[WHERE {WHERE_CONDITION}]
```

**Example:**

To delete the record of a specific show date in a particular theater from the Movies table, you can execute this query:

```sql
DELETE FROM Movies WHERE MovieID=2059 AND ShowDate='2018-07-14' AND TheaterID=053
```

> **Note:** If you specify a string value in the `WHERE` condition, you must pass it enclosed in a single quotation.