Displacement

How to spell displacement

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce displacement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does displacement mean?

1. nounThe act of moving something or someone out of its usual or proper position.
2. nounThe volume or weight of fluid pushed aside by a body floating or submerged in it, or the swept volume of an engine.
3. nounIn psychology, the redirection of an emotion from its original object onto a safer or less threatening one.

Displacement in a sentence

• The flooding caused the displacement of thousands of families.

• The ship's displacement is measured in tonnes of water it pushes aside.

• The therapist explained his anger at the dog as a form of displacement from work stress.

• The new motorway led to the displacement of several long-standing businesses.

• The car's engine has a displacement of two litres.

• Shouting at family after a hard day is a classic example of displacement.

Where does displacement come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from the verb 'displace', which English assembled in the late 1500s from the prefix 'dis-', carrying the sense of 'away' or 'apart', joined to 'place'. 'Place' itself travelled into English through Old French from the Latin 'platea', meaning a broad street or open space, which in turn echoed the Greek 'plateia', the feminine form of 'platys' meaning 'broad' or 'flat'. The noun 'displacement' appeared a little later, in the 1600s, formed with the suffix '-ment' that turns a verb into the name of its action or result, so it literally meant the act of moving something out of its place. From that plain root the word branched into precise technical uses: the volume of fluid pushed aside by a floating body, the engine capacity defined by the swept volume of its cylinders, and in psychology the redirection of feelings onto a safer target. The spelling is mercifully regular if you remember it is simply 'dis' plus 'place' plus 'ment', with the silent 'e' of 'place' kept intact before the suffix.

How the word is built

• dis- (away, from)
• place (a position or location)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)