How can I delete files?

We can copy files and move them around; to delete them, we use rm, which stands for "remove". As with cp and mv, you can give rm the names of as many files as you'd like, so:

rm thesis.txt backup/thesis-2017-08.txt

removes both thesis.txt and backup/thesis-2017-08.txt

rm does exactly what its name says, and it does it right away: unlike graphical file browsers, the shell doesn't have a trash can, so when you type the command above, your thesis is gone for good.