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
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
No one by taking thought, can deracinate the mental habits of, say, twenty years.
From Journalism for Women A Practical Guide by Arnold Bennett
You cannot deracinate that wide-rooted dogma within your soul that more money means more joy.
From The Human Machine by Arnold Bennett
That production, directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, seems completely deracinated on a set by Frederica Nascimento that registers no Brooklyn ZIP Code or locatable address anywhere.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2026
In the weeks since, interrogating the emotion, it feels like an existential grief at being separate and individual, atomised and deracinated.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 12, 2019
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
This “Yerma” takes place in a London of a willfully progressive, deracinated middle class, which long ago discarded traditional notions of family.
From New York Times ● Mar. 28, 2018
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.
