deracinate

[dih-ras-uh-neyt]

verb (used with object)

deracinated, deracinating 

1. to pull up by the roots; uproot; extirpate; eradicate.

2. to isolate or alienate (a person) from a native or customary culture or environment.

deracinate

/ dɪˈræsɪˌneɪt /

verb

1. to pull up by or as if by the roots; uproot; extirpate

2. to remove, as from a natural environment

Other Word Forms

• deracination noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of deracinate¹

First recorded in 1590–1600; from French déracin(er), equivalent to dé- + -raciner, verbal derivative of racine “root,” from Late Latin rādīcīna for Latin rādīc-, stem of rādīx + -ate; dis- ¹, root ¹ ( def. ), -ate ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of deracinate¹

C16: from Old French desraciner, from des- _dis- ¹ + racine root, from Late Latin rādīcīna a little root, from Latin rādīx a root

Example Sentences

Whole Foods replaced Mrs. Gooch’s, but after being deracinated by Amazon, it became passé, less and less a signifier of status.

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Fiction matters more now, in a world increasingly deracinated by technology.

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Yet it’s not the dialects so much that deracinate the production as the nowhere scenic design.

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“Our education effectively deracinated us,” she writes, “suspending us in a kind of colonial non-space designed to ensure that we did not identify too closely with any place.”

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Like nearly everyone in this novel, she leads a globalized, deracinated life.

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Related Words

• abolish 
• annihilate 
• eliminate 
• erase 
• expunge 
• exterminate 
• extinguish 
• stamp out 
• uproot 
• weed out 
• wipe out