displace

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Middle French desplacer,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} recorded in French from the 15th century and now déplacer,^[3][4] from des- (from Latin dis-) and placer (“to place”), from place (“place, spot”).^[3][4][5] Barnhart, Hoad and the Shorter Oxford see it as partly formed from English dis- + place, under the influence of the French verb.^[7][8][9] The noun displacement (1611) was borrowed from French déplacement.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To remove from its place, here in the sense "to transpose": 1552, in T. Wilson's Rule of Reason.^[3] Merriam-Webster dates the verb to 1549, Barnhart to 1551 and Dictionary.com to 1545–55.^[2][7][10]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb meant both moving a thing out of its usual place and removing a person from an office or dignity (1553, in T. Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique).^[3][4] A figurative sense, to banish, was used from 1580 to 1675.^[3][2] Johnson (1755) also gave "to disorder", quoting Macbeth's "You have displac'd the mirth".^[11] The sense of taking the place of something, supplanting it, appears in 1774, in Goldsmith, and that of putting something else in a thing's place in 1816.^[3][9] In physics a floating body displaces a quantity of liquid, and in chemistry one atom or group displaces another in a compound.^[12] Merriam-Webster also records the redirection of a feeling to a new outlet.^[2] The phrase displaced person, a refugee driven from home by war or political pressure, dates from 1944,^[4][9] and Merriam-Webster gives a matching sense of the verb, to force people to flee their homes or homeland.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 1552 – to remove from its usual place.^[3]
• 1553 – to remove from an office or position.^[3]
• 1580 – figurative, to banish (obsolete by 1675).^[3]
• 1774 – to take the place of, supplant.^[3]
• 1816 – to put something else in the place of.^[3]
• 1944 – displaced person, a refugee.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To move something from its usual or proper place: The earthquake displaced several gravestones.^[2][12][3]
2. To force people to leave their homes or country, as in war: The floods displaced thousands of families.^[2][12]
3. To take the place of; to supplant or replace: Streaming has largely displaced the video shop.^[12][3][9]
4. To remove someone from an office or position; to depose.^[2][12][3]
5. (physics) Of a floating or submerged body, to push aside a volume of fluid equal to its own.^[12]
6. (chemistry) To replace an atom or group in a compound with another.^[12]
7. To redirect an emotion or impulse from its usual object to another.^[2]
8. (obsolete, 1580–1675) To drive away; to banish.^[3][2]

Word family

• displaceable
• displacer
• displacement

Related words

• place
• misplace
• replace
• deplace

Usage notes

Dictionary.com contrasts displace with misplace: to displace is usually to shift something solid and hard to move out of its place, often for good, while to misplace is to put something in the wrong place so that it is hard to find.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
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 Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
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 e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins