displace

English

Etymology

From Middle French desplacer (French: déplacer).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪsˈpleɪs/, /dɪzˈpleɪs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /dɪsˈpleɪs/
• Rhymes: -eɪs

Verb

displace (third-person singular simple present displaces, present participle displacing, simple past and past participle displaced)

1. To put out of place; to disarrange.
2. To move something, or someone, especially to forcibly move people from their homeland.
   • 2023 May 8, “Manipur: Thousands displaced as ethnic clashes grip north-eastern state”, in BBC News‎:

     Manipur: Thousands displaced as ethnic clashes grip north-eastern state

3. To supplant, or take the place of something or someone; to substitute.
4. To replace, on account of being superior to or more suitable than that which is being replaced.

   Electronic calculators soon displaced the older mechanical kind.

   • 1950 January, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 13:

     All have gone the same way, and since the war have displaced up-to-date steam power on all their principal services by the all-conquering diesel.

5. (of a floating ship) To have a weight equal to that of the water displaced.
6. (psychology) To repress.
   • 2017, Megan Garber, “The Case for Shyness”, in The Atlantic‎:

     Freud considered shyness to be evidence of displaced narcissism.

Derived terms

Translations