replacement
Americannoun
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replacements
plural
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the act of replacing.
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a person or thing that replaces another.
summer replacements for vacationing staff; a replacement for a broken dish.
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Military. a sailor, soldier, or airman assigned to fill a vacancy in a military unit.
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Also called metasomatism. Geology. the process of practically simultaneous removal and deposition by which a new mineral grows in the body of an old one.
noun
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the act or process of replacing
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a person or thing that replaces another
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geology the growth of a mineral within another of different chemical composition by gradual simultaneous deposition and removal
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Also called: petrification. a process of fossilization by gradual substitution of mineral matter for the original organic matter
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of replacement
Explanation
A replacement is the thing that fills in for something that's missing, or the act of substituting for the missing thing. The replacement for your absent teacher is an annoying substitute. Sigh. When kids lose their baby teeth, replacements soon grow in their places. And when kids need to have their teeth cleaned but their dentist is on vacation, her replacement will be in charge of taking x-rays and checking for cavities. Replacement comes from the verb replace, which adds the "back" prefix re- to place, "to put somewhere."
Vocabulary lists containing replacement
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:
Under a policy based on the premise that the dead trees, or “snags,” will become fuel for future devastating wildfires and hinder planting of replacement trees, the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026
Kyiv's hulking CHPs date back to the 1970s and 1980s during Soviet times, and the stock of replacement parts to patch up damage is running low.
From Barron's ● Oct. 20, 2026
One trigger for the disclosure was an inability to agree on a replacement for operations chief Jonathan Hitchon, who retired in 2023 and served as a kind of diplomat between Overdeck and Siegel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026
Three minutes from time, Canada mounted an attack from halfway after a fumble put Harrison's clearing kick under pressure, and replacement Seumanutafa charged down the left wing to complete the comeback.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026
To the surprise of many of the department’s critics, Stone selected J. Edgar Hoover, the twenty-nine-year-old deputy director of the bureau, to serve as acting director while he searched for a permanent replacement.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
Costs can pile up as hospitals fill gaps with more expensive, often contract, workers and try to recruit and train full-time replacements, he’s found.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 20, 2026
Famously, his big break came when Roseanne Barr decided to fire all the writers on “Roseanne,” then the No. 1 show in the country; Lorre was hired as one of the replacements.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
They have got A-list replacements everywhere they look and, if they need a goal against Sunderland, I can see them bringing someone on to get them one.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
Hesson also refuted suggestions that Mohammad Imran and Mohammad Imran Jr were both called up as replacements because the PCB was confused by their names.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Wheeling their horses about at the far end of the lists, the knights tossed down their broken lances and accepted replacements from the squires.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
