When a file name is deleted from the directory tree, the file name‘s connection to the inode number is severed. If the file name is the last "link" to the inode number, thereby reducing the number of inode (file content) "links" to file names to 0, then the inode is detatched from the actual data and returned to the pool of free inode numbers. The data remains on the disk, but unaccessable by traditional means now that it no longer has a corresponding inode number. The disk space is free to be overwritten. This process is called unlinking.

unlinking