displace

[dis-pleys]

verb (used with object)

displaced, displacing 

1. to compel (a person or persons) to leave home, country, etc.

2. to move or put out of the usual or proper place.

   Synonyms: relocate

3. to take the place of; replace; supplant.

   Fiction displaces fact.

4. to remove from a position, office, or dignity.

   Synonyms: dismiss, oust, depose

5. Obsolete.,  to rid oneself of.

displace

/ dɪsˈpleɪs /

verb

1. to move from the usual or correct location

2. to remove from office or employment

3. to occupy the place of; replace; supplant

4. to force (someone) to leave home or country, as during a war

5. chem to replace (an atom or group in a chemical compound) by another atom or group

6. physics to cause a displacement of (a quantity of liquid, usually water of a specified type and density)

Other Word Forms

• displaceable adjective
• predisplace verb (used with object)
• undisplaceable adjective
• displacer noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of displace¹

1545–55; dis- ¹ + place, perhaps modeled on Middle French desplacer

Synonym Study

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.

Example Sentences

Reminiscent of London’s Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, the scale of loss is among the worst in Hong Kong in recent memory, leaving entire families displaced or grieving.

Read more on Salon

The displaced Poles were in turn resettled in Silesia, a region on the border of Czechoslovakia that had formerly belonged to Germany.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The Hong Kong government has also set up shelters and support centres for displaced residents.

Read more on BBC

He warns against weakening workers' bargaining power, especially as technology displaces jobs and unemployment remains high.

Read more on BBC

For the residents of the El Miskin camp for internally displaced persons, on the outskirts of town, there is no "business, no farmland, no proper living conditions, no schools", said camp chairman Hashim El Miskin.

Read more on Barron's

Related Words

• disturb 
• evict 
• expel 
• force out 
• lose 
• uproot