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:
As job growth slowed, worries spread that AI would displace entry-level workers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
Now the Wall Street heavyweight is lining up behind the Lone Star State’s effort to displace Delaware as the corporate capital of America.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
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 only option to build the facility was to demolish the Trojans’ longtime baseball field and displace the program for multiple seasons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
When I became Joe’s ’prentice, Orlick was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him; howbeit, he liked me still less.
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
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
Hochman has not taken a public position on the Menendez case, but has said he intends to review the decision if he displaces Gascón.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2024
It is perfectly correct to claim that in a boundless fluid a floating body displaces its own weight in water.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Armies, displaced civilians, refugees, and traders frequently traveled along the same routes, creating opportunities for disease to move between regions.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026
Almost two years after a massive battery fire in Monterey County displaced 1,200 people and smoldered for days, spewing toxic gas into the air, the same facility is burning again.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
One of the displaced, Abdulali al-Rajihi, said the Houthis "told us: 'Leave, scatter, you have half an hour'".
From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026
Turns out that while the phones have been displaced, the Canadian company runs two thriving businesses today, both based on technology developed for the phones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Behind us, a whirlpool was opening up, all the water displaced by the sub rushing back to fill the void as it sank.
From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs
Deadly blazes swept through large swathes of northern Algeria last week, causing widespread destruction, injuring dozens and displacing thousands of people.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
IBM’s warning suggested AI infrastructure spending is now displacing hardware budgets, too—squeezing a company whose customers install traditional systems in their own data centers and can defer big-ticket upgrades such as mainframes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Fourth of July fireworks sparked dangerous explosions and raging fires across Southern California, leaving several injured and displacing families.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
No. But like the books it makes clear the well-founded fear that settlers had about the Native Americans around them, and the oblivious attitude of the pioneers toward the people they were displacing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
If only she had a gourd to ward off the wicked spirits that delight in displacing everyday things.
From "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" by Bette Bao Lord
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.
