deracinate

English

Etymology

Calque of French déraciner, from racine (“root”), from Latin rādīx, rādīcis (“root”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈɹæsɪneɪt/, /dɪˈɹæsəneɪt/

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Verb

deracinate (third-person singular simple present deracinates, present participle deracinating, simple past and past participle deracinated)

1. To pull up by the roots; to uproot; to extirpate.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,
     The unity and married calm of states
     Quite from their fixture!

   • 1910, Gilbert K[eith] Chesterton, “chapter 1.7”, in What’s Wrong with the World, London, New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, , →OCLC:

     The State has no tool delicate enough to deracinate the rooted habits and tangled affections of the family; the two sexes, whether happy or unhappy, are glued together too tightly for us to get the blade of a legal penknife in between them.

2. To force (people) from their homeland to a new or foreign location.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To liberate or be liberated from a culture or its norms.
   • 1986, Robert McCrum, William Cran, Robert MacNeil, The Story of English, Viking Penguin Inc., page 328:

     Observing the highest echelons of Indian society, she notes the way in which some Indians become completely — almost absurdly — anglicized or deracinated.

Translations

Anagrams

• ecardinate