decenter

[ dee-sen-ter ]

verb (used with object)
  1. to put out of the center or make eccentric: The goal is to decenter the treatment zone of the eye to align with the line of sight instead of the geometric center of the cornea.

  2. to remove from a position of priority or dominance so as to give attention and influence to other viewpoints, concerns, etc.: The new version of the test will force high schools to teach history from a perspective that decenters whiteness.The author’s call to decenter the self, to make empathetic leaps toward the other, is unsentimental yet moving.

  1. Astronomy. to cause (an orbit) to follow a path in which the body being orbited is not at the center: A decentered orbit is temporary—all orbits around a single body become elliptical and centered in due time.

verb (used without object)
  1. to shift one’s attention from one’s usual focus or preoccupation: As therapists we must decenter from our own perspective and experience the client through their own way of being in the world.

Origin of decenter

1
First recorded in 1885–90; de- + center
  • Also especially British, de·cen·tre .

Words Nearby decenter

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use decenter in a sentence

  • I still need to work on a lot of this stuff, but the clarity that you get from extricating yourself from that situation, from just trying to decenter work a little bit, I think is super powerful.

  • But I want her to think well of me—I want to show her that I'm as decent as most men 'round these parts, and decenter than some.

    Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery | Theodore Goodridge Roberts
  • I saw at once that he was a good deal decenter than he looked.

    Yellowstone Nights | Herbert Quick
  • But it will be far decenter and better for a parties to enter into some agreement of that sort.

    The Entail | John Galt
  • There was a theory in his family that it would have been a decenter thing for him to stop running about and settle down to work.

    Graustark | George Barr McCutcheon
  • I am in another man's skin; for what, after all, is a skin but a soul's clothing, and what is clothing but a decenter skin?

    Kenelm Chillingly, Complete | Edward Bulwer-Lytton