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
Locals worry the project would hurt businesses, since the track’s footprint would displace some.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
The industry argues that will simply displace imported oil rather than generate new emissions and the EIA - which was produced by Adura - concluded that the emissions were "not significant".
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 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 was rare for his real life to be so good that it would displace his imaginary life.
From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner
According to NASA, El Niño’s warmer ocean water displaces colder water close to the sea surface.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
According to the researchers, Alzheimer's may begin when a-beta displaces tau from microtubules.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2026
For Africa’s poorest importers, every mini-grid, solar farm, battery and electric bus that displaces fuel imports reduces exposure to the next oil shock, though high borrowing costs, currency risk and weak grids remain major constraints.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 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
“No!” whispered Montag, “The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at. dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.”
From "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
The expansion came at an enormous cost to Native Americans, who were displaced and deprived of their sovereignty, and to Mexicans, whose country lost half its territory.
From Salon ● Oct. 13, 2026
In Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries, ordinary civilians are paying the price for the renewed fighting, with more than 200,000 people displaced since July, according to UN data.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
Up to 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050, with Pacific island countries experiencing sea level rise at twice the global average, it said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
Nearly all of Gaza's 2.1 million population has been displaced and much of the territory is in ruins.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
In this case, he wrote, in a draft text, the volume and weight of the water displaced correspond to the volume and weight of the ball, according to Archimedes’ principle—except they don’t.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
This pattern raises the possibility that the wasps are displacing the ants completely, although the researchers say experiments would be necessary to confirm whether that is actually happening.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 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
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
Pet interrupted her by appearing slowly, a heaviness displacing the air.
From "Pet" by Akwaeke Emezi
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.
