oust

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ousten,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman ouster, also oustier,^[5][2][6] variants of Anglo-Norman and Old French oster (“to take away, remove, deprive of, evict”),^[5][4][7][8] now French ôter.^[5][9][8] The Anglo-Norman verb, with spellings such as houster, is recorded from 1113–19, already meaning to take out, remove, send away and exclude;^[6] Etymonline dates the form ouster to the early 14th century,^[4] and the Middle English Dictionary quotes it in London records of 1312 and 1321.^[2] The French verb is ultimately from Late Latin obstō (“to prevent from; to remove, take away”), recorded in this transitive use from the 5th century,^[5] a use of the classical verb meaning to stand in the way of, hinder,^[5][8][3] formed from ob- (“against”) and stō (“to stand”),^[4][3][8] from Proto-Indo-European *sta- (“to stand, make or be firm”).^[4] The OED compares Old Occitan ostar (“to take away, deprive of”).^[5] Skeat and Weekley thought the sense hard to get from the Latin verb and mentioned Vulgar Latin *haustō, from Latin hauriō (“to draw water, drain”);^[10][11] the modern dictionaries all follow the derivation from Latin.^{[5][12][13][14]} The word is related to obstacle.^[3][12][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In law, to evict or dispossess someone of land or property: 1420, in the Proceedings in Chancery, where a tenant is not to be "wrongfully ousted by maintenance of lordship".^[2][5][3] Oxford's dictionary of English notes that it first came in as a legal term.^[13]

Semantic evolution

For two centuries the word belonged to the law: to put out of possession (1420), and later to exclude or take away a right or privilege (1656), now especially a court's jurisdiction.^[5][7] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to vacate; to take away".^[15] The general sense of driving someone out of a place or position is first recorded in Pepys's diary in 1668, according to Barnhart,^[3] while the OED's first example is from Jefferson in 1787;^[5] Hoad dates "turn out, eject" to the 17th century.^[9] From 1865 it was also used of one thing replacing another in use or fashion.^[5] The noun ouster, an ejection from a possession, is a 16th-century use of the Anglo-Norman infinitive in Law French.^[9][3]

Timeline

• 1420 – in law, to dispossess, evict.^[5][2][3]
• 1656 – to exclude, bar; to take away a right.^[5]
• 1668 – to expel from a place or position, in Pepys.^[3] The OED's first record of this sense is from 1787.^[5]
• 1865 – to replace in use or fashion.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To force someone out of a position or place; to expel or supplant: The board ousted the chairman after the scandal.^[16][14][5]
2. To take the place of something in use or fashion; replace.^[5][16]
3. (law) To deprive a person of the possession of land or property; dispossess.^[16][14][5]
4. (law) To take away a right or authority, especially a court's jurisdiction.^[14][5]

Word family

• ouster

Related words

• obstacle
• obstetric
• stand

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins