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:
Locals worry the project would hurt businesses, since the track’s footprint would displace some.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 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
It doesn’t displace otherwise applicable federal or state law.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
None of these reforms would displace Slaughter’s core holding.
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2026
Only the further evidence that I’ll now present can help us answer two more questions: What advantages enabled the Bantu to displace the Pygmies and Khoisan?
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
According to the researchers, Alzheimer's may begin when a-beta displaces tau from microtubules.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2026
The report lays out a death spiral for the economy in which AI displaces white-collar workers, who are then unemployed and have no money to spend, which causes economic ruin.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
Buyers should ask themselves if they really need Subaru’s heroic AWD hardware, the cost of which displaces value in other parts of the car.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 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
He said that around 1,200 people were displaced from at least three villages.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
Around 13,700 homes were inside the evacuation area, local emergency services said, with two shelters set up to take in displaced residents.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
More than 40,000 people have been displaced and about 45,000 people were told they should prepare to leave their homes, authorities said Sunday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
Rasmussen himself was gone from day-to-day operations roughly a year after launch, displaced by the professional managers and outside money his idea had attracted.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
For a split second, it displaced the look of all-around wear and, plainly, specific worry that had been on her face since she entered the bathroom.
From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger
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
The blaze at Jatiwaringin landfill, on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta, has spread across more than 15 hectares, smothering the area in thick, toxic smoke and displacing hundreds of local residents.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 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
Capybaras have been migrating to cities since the 2000s, as Brazilian metro areas grew, displacing their old habitats.
From Slate ● May 27, 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.
