Other forms: displaced, displacing, displaces
To displace is to force something, or someone, out of its usual place. Displaced by the flood, displace the water, displaced persons.
Displaced persons is the formal term for people driven from their homes but still inside their own country, which is why they are counted separately from refugees. In physics, a floating body displaces its own weight in water, which is Archimedes' principle. Note displacement; and that the French means to move away.
1verbdisplaceTo force something or someone out of its usual place.
“The floods displaced thousands of families, who had to sleep in schools and churches.”
2verbpushTo push aside a volume of fluid.
“When you get into the bath, your body displaces the water and the level rises.”
displace is a forcing out of place.
Middle French desplacer is des plus place. Place comes from Latin platea, a broad street.
Middle French
desplacer
English, today
displace
From Middle French desplacer (French: déplacer).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA