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

She is living in a rented garage, struggling each day to find food and clean water, and has been displaced multiple times.

From BBC

Almost the entire population has been displaced and much of its infrastructure flattened.

From BBC

This was not the first such expulsion in this conflict: in the 1990s over 500,000 Azerbaijanis were displaced.

From BBC

Most of Gaza's population has been repeatedly displaced and more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed.

From BBC

“I’m talking to you now as a displaced person, along with what’s left of my clan, all of us spread out in different parts of Gaza,” Dughmush said.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

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