displace
Americanverb (used with object)
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displaces,
present (3rd person singular)
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displaced,
past participle, past
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displacing
present participle
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to compel (a person or persons) to leave home, country, etc.
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to move or put out of the usual or proper place.
- Synonyms:
- relocate
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to take the place of; replace; supplant.
Fiction displaces fact.
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to remove from a position, office, or dignity.
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Obsolete. to rid oneself of.
verb
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to move from the usual or correct location
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to remove from office or employment
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to occupy the place of; replace; supplant
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to force (someone) to leave home or country, as during a war
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chem to replace (an atom or group in a chemical compound) by another atom or group
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physics to cause a displacement of (a quantity of liquid, usually water of a specified type and density)
Synonym Usage
Displace, misplace mean to put something in a different place from where it should be. To displace often means to shift something solid and comparatively immovable, more or less permanently from its place: The flood displaced houses from their foundations. To misplace is to put an object in a wrong place so that it is difficult to find: Papers belonging in the safe were misplaced and temporarily lost.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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displacesimple
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displacessimple
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have displacedperfect
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has displacedperfect
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am displacingprogressive
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are displacingprogressive
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is displacingprogressive
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have been displacingperfect progressive
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has been displacingperfect progressive
Past
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displacedsimple
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had displacedperfect
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was displacingprogressive
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were displacingprogressive
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had been displacingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of displace
1545–55; dis- 1 + place, perhaps modeled on Middle French desplacer
Explanation
When you displace something, you move it to a new position — either in a concrete sense, like moving a chair, or in an abstract sense, like firing someone from a job. Displace means to forcefully move or remove something — or someone — but it can also mean “to take the place of,” again, with some force. If your brother is sitting in your seat, you might say, “Get out of my chair! Don’t make me have to displace you!” Similarly, when a new employee is hired at work, she might displace the person who had the job before.
Vocabulary lists containing displace
100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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100 Great Words from "Fahrenheit 451" -- Part I Vocabulary
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"Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began" by Art Spiegelman
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Holly: Former Manchester United man Alejandro Garnacho may be well fancied after arriving at Villa on loan from Chelsea this summer, but Emi Buendia may be hard to displace in midfield.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
The new sectors need roughly half the labor of the old ones they displace, she says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
“AI introduces so much uncertainty with employers, not sure knowing what they need or don’t need,” he said, adding that the drumbeat of AI’s power to displace humans and save shareholders money won’t stop.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
None of these reforms would displace Slaughter’s core holding.
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2026
It was rare for his real life to be so good that it would displace his imaginary life.
From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner
According to the researchers, Alzheimer's may begin when a-beta displaces tau from microtubules.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2026
For eight hours, the 65-year-old displaces tonnes of steel that will become ship hulls and wind turbine components.
From Barron's ● Mar. 7, 2026
Healthcare displaces technology at the top of the survey’s consensus overweight ranking for February.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 18, 2026
He warns against weakening workers' bargaining power, especially as technology displaces jobs and unemployment remains high.
From BBC ● Nov. 27, 2025
In an early unpublished text from the 1590s he sought to demonstrate that Archimedes’ principle, that a body floats when it displaces its own weight in water, is necessarily true.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
In Nepal, nearly 3,500 people have been left homeless and displaced in 27 sites - mostly schools, which disrupts education - across the districts of Nuwakot and Rasuwa.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
UN children's fund official Abiodun Banire said displaced families needed psycho-social support services and basic supplies "so that they can get a sense of normalcy while they are going through this difficult situation".
From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026
While some companies may be displaced by frontier labs, “I don’t think all SaaS companies are created equal,” Nicholas Frasse, product manager for thematic ETFs at VanEck, told MarketWatch.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 30, 2026
Cheaper, faster-growing eucalyptus from Brazil, excluded from recent tariffs, has displaced domestic pulp.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Despite her discouraging introduction to the team dynamic, Eliza continued her quest to make the national team, and she displaced Daria as our newest team member.
From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad
Scientists are looking at the possibility that an ice-rock avalanche fell into a tributary of Rasuwa district’s Trishuli River, displacing a large amount of water.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
Ultimately, the board determined that the long-term community benefits of the Sunrise project outweighed the short-term pain of displacing Silverado residents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
“There are concerns about AI displacing some of their own business, and the capital spending is a big issue.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 6, 2026
The earthquake, which struck on Monday morning, triggered tsunami warnings in Indonesia, south of Mindanao and across Japan's Pacific coast, displacing tens of thousands of people.
From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026
As a result, the Inka were almost forced to co-opt local rulers instead of displacing them.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
