supplant

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English supplaunten, also supplanten,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French supplanter (“to trip up, overthrow”)^[4][5][6][7] and directly borrowed from Latin supplantō (“to trip up, overthrow”).^{[4][8][9][10]} The French verb, also Anglo-Norman suplanter, is recorded from the early 12th century.^[4][11] The Latin verb is formed from sub- (“under”), assimilated as sup-, and planta (“sole of the foot”),^[4][5][8][7] and Skeat glossed it as putting something under the sole of the foot.^[12] In post-classical Latin, from the Vulgate on, it could also mean to deceive, to oust and to ruin.^[4] Etymonline and the OED connect the Latin noun with the English noun plant,^[8][4] which Ayto calls only a possible descendant;^[13] the American Heritage Dictionary refers it to Proto-Indo-European *plat-.^[7] Klein and Etymonline compare the sense development of a Hebrew verb for "he beguiled", formed from the word for "heel".^[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To trip up someone's steps, and also to dispossess someone and take his place: both senses appear about 1350, in a Middle English Psalter ("to supplaunten my ganginges").^[4][2] The agent noun supplanter is older, and implies the verb: before 1325 in Barnhart,^[5] about 1300 in Etymonline,^[8] the 13th century in Hoad and Weekley.^[14][15]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English with the whole range of its French and Latin sources: tripping up, overthrowing, and ousting by trickery.^[2][4][11] Weekley links the early use to the story of Jacob, for whom the Vulgate's Genesis uses the Latin verb.^[15] The literal "trip up" did not last in everyday use,^[8] although poets kept it: Johnson (1755) gave it as the first sense, quoting Milton's "supplanted down he fell",^[16][17] and the OED's last example is from 1854.^[4] Gower used the verb seven times, for acquiring goods wrongfully and for deceiving.^[18] The sense "bring low, cause the downfall of" ran from before 1382 to 1782.^[4] The neutral modern sense, of one thing taking the place of another, is one the revised OED traces to Trevisa, before 1398,^[4] though Barnhart first finds it in 1671, and in the noun supplantation in 1608, and Etymonline dates it by the 1670s.^[5][8] In French the corresponding sense of replacing one thing with another is recorded from 1585.^[4] The sense "to uproot" (1549–1845) chiefly appears in figurative contexts, often beside the noun or verb plant,^[4] and a rare horticultural use for propagating by layering.^[4] Since Darwin (1859) the word has also been used of one species replacing another in a range,^[4] and since 1937 of a dominant animal displacing another.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1325 – supplanter, the agent noun, implying the verb.^[5] Etymonline dates it to about 1300.^[8]
• c. 1350 – to trip, to make stumble; to dispossess and take the place of.^[4][2]
• before 1382 – to cause the downfall of; to ruin a design.^[4][2]
• before 1393 – noun, the action of supplanting, in Gower.^[4]
• before 1398 – chiefly of things, to take the place of, in Trevisa.^[4] Barnhart dates this sense to 1671.^[5]
• 1483 – to get by dispossessing someone, in Caxton (now obsolete).^[4]
• 1534 – to remove from a position, to get rid of.^[4]
• 1549 – to root out, to uproot, in Latimer (obsolete by 1845).^[4]
• 1601 – to propagate by layering, in Holland's Pliny (obsolete by 1656).^[4]
• 1859 – of a species, to replace another, in Darwin.^[4]
• 1937 – of an animal, to displace another by dominance.^[4]
• 1960 – noun, an act of displacing a less dominant animal.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take the place of another person, especially by force, scheming or treachery; to usurp: The young minister supplanted her patron within a year.^[3][19][20]
2. To replace one thing with another; of a thing, to take the place of an older one: Streaming has largely supplanted the video shop.^[7][20][4]
3. (zoology, botany) Of a species, to replace another in a range or ecological niche.^[4]
4. (obsolete, c. 1350–1854) To trip up; to make someone fall.^[3][4]
5. (archaic) To cause the downfall of; to bring low.^[3][4]
6. (obsolete, 1549–1845) To root out; to uproot.^[3][4]

Noun

1. (rare) The action of supplanting.^[4]
2. (animal behaviour) An act of displacing a less dominant animal from a place or activity.^[4]

Word family

• supplantation
• supplanter
• unsupplanted

Related words

• plant
• plantar
• place

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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ 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 z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
18. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
19. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
20. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House