dispossess
Americanverb (used with object)
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to put (a person) out of possession, especially of real property; oust.
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to banish.
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to abandon ownership of (a building), especially as a bad investment.
Landlords have dispossessed many old tenement buildings.
verb
Synonym Usage
See strip 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dispossesssimple
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dispossessessimple
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have dispossessedperfect
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has dispossessedperfect
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am dispossessingprogressive
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are dispossessingprogressive
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is dispossessingprogressive
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have been dispossessingperfect progressive
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has been dispossessingperfect progressive
Past
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dispossessedsimple
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had dispossessedperfect
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was dispossessingprogressive
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were dispossessingprogressive
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had been dispossessingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dispossess
First recorded in 1425–75; dis- 1 + possess; replacing Middle English disposseden, equivalent to dis- 1 + posseden (from Old French posseder ), from Latin possidēre; possess
Explanation
When you take something away from someone, especially land or property, you dispossess them of it. Your parents might dispossess you of the tent you pitched in the yard to set up the grill for their upcoming cookout. At the heart of dispossess is the verb possess, which you may think of as meaning "to own," but which also means "to occupy" or "to hold as real estate." When people are deprived of their property or possessions, they are dispossessed. In fact, the verb dispossess is sometimes used in place of the more direct evict. If a homeowner misses too many mortgage payments, the bank may dispossess them, forcing them to move out.
Vocabulary lists containing dispossess
Twelfth Night
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Beowulf
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"Bonne Année" by Jean-Pierre Benoît
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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:
"Hold On to Me" from Cyprus traces the efforts of an 11-year-old tracking down her estranged father, while documentary "Kikuyu Land" from Kenya examines how powerful outside forces use local corruption to dispossess a people.
From Barron's ● Jan. 22, 2026
They were visualizing that they would just dispossess them.
From Slate ● Feb. 5, 2024
The Manchester United defender required treatment on the pitch but was able to carry on, and soon proved he was fine with a masterful back-heeled tackle to dispossess Sesko.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2023
Vela’s faint effort to dispossess León of the ball was in vain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2023
He hears the young knocking at the door and he fears that the young will enter in and dispossess him.
From Revisiting the Earth by Hill, James Langdon
Rose dispossesses Sissoko to end one such break and passes to Son, who shoots wildly over the bar from 30 yards.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 13, 2015
He gets past the first but then Hendrix dispossesses him.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 25, 2015
But Watson, upset at looking like a haddie, chases back and dispossesses the Portuguese.
From BBC ● Feb. 5, 2011
Oof, as I was writing that Asamoah Gyan goes close again when he dispossesses the Nigerian defence and tries to lob Vincent Enyeama.
From BBC ● Jan. 28, 2010
The Silky Epeira, on her side, when she is the stronger, dispossesses her belted cousin and devours her.
From The Life of the Spider by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander
With six minutes of regular time remaining, he dispossessed an opponent, surged forward and coolly fired the ball into the net.
From Barron's ● Feb. 16, 2026
Goldblatt’s pictures from before these events are touristic and from afterward elegiac; particularly moving are his portraits of the dispossessed, showing their bitterness and their dignity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
In the golden age of mobility, the winners were the dispossessed.
From Salon ● Mar. 26, 2025
Now that fires from Pacific Palisades to Altadena to Castaic have finally subsided, thousands upon thousands of residents are returning to a life dispossessed of its least common denominators.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2025
They were exiles and sons of exiles, dispossessed and unforgiven... yet formidable fighters still.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
But it also ordered local authorities to seal off and protect the area where the stone shaft was found, dispossessing Muslims of a portion of the mosque they had used until this month.
From Seattle Times ● May 25, 2022
And then came the white settlers and the commercializing of the hot springs, effectively dispossessing them from their own lands, even though some tribes tried to assert their legal claims.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2021
There appeared little danger as Maria Palama passed back to goalkeeper Anthi Papakonstantinou, but the ball held up on the wet pitch and Green exploited the situation, dispossessing Papakonstantinou and tapping into an empty net.
From BBC ● Nov. 26, 2021
The U.S. government and its military did the bulk of the dispossessing of Native Americans.
From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2020
It felt oddly dispossessing, being handed this first legal proof of my personhood: until that moment, it had never occurred to me that proof was required.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
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.
