dislocate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin dislocātus, the past participle of dislocō (“to put out of place”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} formed from dis- (“away”) and locō (“to place”),^[2][3][4][7] from locus (“place”),^[2][3][7] a word of uncertain origin.^[3] The participle was used as an English adjective long before the finite verb appeared.^[2][4] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English therefore take the verb as probably a back-formation from dislocation, which Barnhart records before 1400,^{[8][9][10][4]} although the last two allow that it may come from the adjective or the Latin participle.^[9][10] The OED compares Italian dislocare, Portuguese deslocar and French disloquer.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Out of joint, as an adjective or past participle: about 1400 in the OED,^[2][3] before 1408 in Barnhart, in the Middle English translation of Lanfranc's work on surgery.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

English began with the surgical participle, and the verb's first recorded sense is also the bone out of its joint, in Shakespeare's King Lear.^[2][4] From there it widened: to putting anything out of its proper place from 1623, in Cockeram's dictionary, a sense the OED now calls rare,^[2] and to shifting something out of position against the parts next to it from 1660, in Boyle.^[2] Johnson (1755) illustrated the general sense with Woodward's geological strata, "dislocated, borne from their original site".^[11] Before 1661, in Fuller, it was also used figuratively, of putting affairs "out of joint" and throwing them into disorder,^[2] and Collins still gives the sense of disrupting.^[12] The adjective itself is now rare or obsolete.^[9][5]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – adjective or past participle, out of joint.^[2][3][4]
• 1608 – verb, to put a bone or joint out of place, in King Lear.^[2] Barnhart dates the play's use to 1605, Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1601 and Etymonline about 1600.^[4][5][3]
• 1623 – to put out of place, displace.^[2]
• 1660 – to put out of position in relation to adjoining parts.^[2]
• before 1661 – figuratively, to throw affairs into confusion or disorder.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To displace a bone from its normal position in a joint, or to put a body part out of place in this way: She dislocated her knee on the ski slope.^[12][5][2]
2. To put something out of its proper or former place; to displace.^[12][5][2]
3. To throw into confusion or disorder; to disrupt: The strike dislocated rail services across the region.^[12][2]

Adjective

1. (archaic) Dislocated.^[5][9][2]

Noun

1. A stunt on the flying rings, starting from a kip, in which the body arches backward and the legs swing through an arc.^[5]

Related words

• dislocation
• locate
• location

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins