deracinate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to pull up by the roots; uproot; extirpate; eradicate.
-
to isolate or alienate (a person) from a native or customary culture or environment.
verb
-
to pull up by or as if by the roots; uproot; extirpate
-
to remove, as from a natural environment
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of deracinate
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; see origin at dis- 1, root 1 ( def. ), -ate 1
Explanation
To deracinate someone is to force them to move away from their native home to a new, unfamiliar place. Civil wars often deracinate large segments of a country's population. Deracinate comes from the Old French desraciner, "pull up by the roots." When you deracinate people, they're figuratively pulled up by the roots, usually with the intention of "planting" them in a new location. Historically, U.S. policies deracinated Native American tribes, relocating them to reservations. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina deracinated many people whose neighborhoods became unlivable. You can also use this verb more literally: "I'm going to deracinate that lavender plant and put it in a sunnier spot."
Vocabulary lists containing deracinate
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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:
Yet it’s not the dialects so much that deracinate the production as the nowhere scenic design.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2023
To collect the artistic riches from the region and put them on display in the Sassi would deracinate them, he argues.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 20, 2015
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture.”
From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton-Dyer
But the gale that will deracinate Cambridge has not yet begun to rage....
From Your United States Impressions of a first visit by Arnold Bennett
There is as yet no Greek language of philosophy; a long development will bring it forth however; Aristotle will deracinate the last image of Homer, and leave the Greek tongue supersensible.
From Homer's Odyssey A Commentary by Denton Jaques Snider
It will do so diminished and deracinated, a shadow of what it was meant to be, but it will go on regardless, irrefutable proof of big-time soccer’s barrel-chested, bullheaded intransigence.
From New York Times ● Jun. 11, 2021
Though Semprún rebuilt his life in France as a deracinated exile forced to invent himself from scratch, I suggest that his political and literary ambitions were forged in his childhood in Spain.
From Salon ● Jul. 1, 2018
Lange is hampered by Jonathan Kent’s deracinated production, which could be set anywhere and often seems as though it is.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2016
Raskolnikov, the deracinated former law student in Crime and Punishment, is the psychopath of instrumental rationality, who can work up evidently logical reasons to do anything he desires.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 24, 2015
Our deracinated feet stomped along in the mud.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Maggie could have been played by one those American actors whose English accent consists merely of deracinating it and denuding it of any character.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 8, 2011
It might be exasperating and deracinating, but it's also true.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 2, 2010
Constant change, for example, has had a deracinating effect.
From Time Magazine Archive
In practice, such cascades of images can prove deracinating.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
