displace
[dis-pleys]
- to compel (a person or persons) to leave home, country, etc.
- to move or put out of the usual or proper place.
- to take the place of; replace; supplant: Fiction displaces fact.
- to remove from a position, office, or dignity.
- Obsolete. to rid oneself of.
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Origin of displace
Synonyms
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comSynonym study
2. 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.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
disturbexpelloseuprootevicttransportmislayunsettleejectshifttransposemisplacedislodgerelegatechangedispossessderangedislocatedisarrangedisestablishExamples from the Web for displace
Contemporary Examples
But as machines continue to displace humans in a range of fields, they may exacerbate our structural problems with jobs growth.
Robotic Technologies Could Aggravate the U.S. Problem of Slow Jobs GrowthRobert Shapiro
July 19, 2013
And yet stories of individual acts of kindness and bravery are beginning to displace the horror.
As someone who rejects that view, play futurist for a second: What kind of technologies could displace the Internet?
The Internet Won’t Save Us: Evgeny Morozov’s Stand Against Technology SolutionismRobert Herritt
March 5, 2013
The 40th mile of capacity will displace gasoline only on trips over 40 miles.
Electric Vehicles May Be the Green Car of the Future, But Hybrids Are the Green Car of the PresentMegan McArdle
January 24, 2013
The first mile worth of battery capacity added to the vehicle will displace gasoline every time you use it.
Electric Vehicles May Be the Green Car of the Future, But Hybrids Are the Green Car of the PresentMegan McArdle
January 24, 2013
Historical Examples
Gates endeavored to displace Washington, but ruined himself in the attempt.
The Siege of BostonAllen French
There was an interval of slight awkwardness, which Susy endeavored to displace.
A Waif of the PlainsBret Harte
We floated like corks, we were so light, and so little water did we displace.
Wandl the InvaderRaymond King Cummings
The yellow newspapers thrive and displace all the others because he likes them.
FolkwaysWilliam Graham Sumner
The nation did not send them to displace, but to support me.
Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. IIFleury de Chaboulon.
displace
- to move from the usual or correct location
- to remove from office or employment
- to occupy the place of; replace; supplant
- to force (someone) to leave home or country, as during a war
- chem to replace (an atom or group in a chemical compound) by another atom or group
- physics to cause a displacement of (a quantity of liquid, usually water of a specified type and density)
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for displace
v.
1550s, from Middle French desplacer (15c.), from des- (see dis-) + placer "to place." Related: Displaced; displacing. Displaced person "refugee" is from 1944.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper