Etymologically
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displacement

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Pronunciation

  • /dɪsˈpleɪsmɪnt/, /dɪzˈpleɪsmənt/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English displace + -ment.[2][3][4][5] The OED compares Old French desplacement, modern French déplacement, perhaps the immediate source of the first sense, removal from office.[2][5] The verb displace is from desplacer (15th century),[3][2] from des- and placer (“to place”), from place.[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Removal from an office or dignity; deposition: 1611, in John Speed's History of Great Britaine.[2][6][3] The OED notes that this earliest sense is somewhat rare,[2] and the Shorter Oxford calls it rare.[5] Random House dates the word to 1605–15.[4]

Semantic evolution

The general sense, the removal of a thing from its place, is recorded from 1803, and most of the later senses are scientific.[2] From 1809, in Etymonline, or 1816, in the OED's first quotation from shipbuilding, it meant the amount of liquid pushed aside by a body floating or immersed in it, and so the size of a ship.[3][2] In physics, from 1837 in Whewell, it was the distance by which a body has moved from its first position.[2][3] Engineers have used it since 1897 for the volume swept by a piston in a pump or engine.[2] In 1913 A. A. Brill's translation of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams used it for the unconscious shift of an idea or feeling onto a substitute,[2] part of a wider pattern of describing the mind in terms of place and position that grew in the early 20th century.[7] In 1947 the ethologist E. A. Armstrong used it for behaviour that appears out of its usual context when an animal is torn between two impulses, now called displacement activity.[2]

Timeline

  • 1611 – removal from office.[2][6]
  • 1803 – removal of a thing from its place.[2]
  • 1809 – the quantity of liquid displaced by a solid body.[3]
  • 1816 – the weight or volume of water displaced by a ship.[2]
  • 1837 – physics, the distance by which a body is moved.[2][3]
  • 1869 – replacement of one thing by another.[2]
  • 1897 – the volume swept by a piston.[2]
  • 1913 – psychology, transfer of feelings onto a substitute.[2]
  • 1947 – in displacement activity.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The act of moving something or someone out of its usual place, or the state of being moved out of it: the displacement of villagers by the dam.[8][6][9]
  2. Removal from office; deposition.[6][2]
  3. The volume or weight of a fluid pushed aside by a floating or submerged body, used as a measure of the size of a ship.[8][9][2]
  4. (physics) The distance and direction between the starting position of a body and its later position.[9][2]
  5. The volume swept by the pistons of an engine or pump.[8][2]
  6. (psychoanalysis) The unconscious transfer of feelings from their real object to a substitute.[8][2]
  7. (chemistry) Another name for substitution.[8]
  8. (geology) The distance a point on one side of a fault has moved in relation to the other side.[8]

Word family

  • predisplacement
  • displacement activity
  • displacement current
  • displacement ton

References

  1. ^ 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 u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
  8. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster