MEANING
To shift something away from an assumed central position, priority or controlling focus.
Use it for
questioning an assumed center of interpretation; reducing the dominance of one perspective; reframing a subject without treating one group as the norm; distinguishing changed emphasis from complete exclusionExpresses shifting an assumed center or priority without necessarily excluding it entirely. Writing functions: Analysis / Interpretation.
Words that belong together
- decenter a perspective
- decenter the narrator
- decenter dominant assumptions
On the page
The course decenters the capital by tracing cultural exchange between provincial towns.
Her reading decenters the narrator without treating every statement he makes as false.
Word forms
- Base
- decenter
- Past tense
- decentered
- Past participle
- decentered
- Present participle
- decentering
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- decenter
- Present continuous
- am/is/are decentering
- Present perfect
- have/has decentered
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been decentering
- Past
- decentered
- Past continuous
- was/were decentering
- Past perfect
- had decentered
- Past perfect continuous
- had been decentering
- Future
- will decenter
- Future continuous
- will be decentering
- Future perfect
- will have decentered
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been decentering
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Transitive: decenter, decenters, decentered, decentered, decentering; future will decenter. UK decentres/decentred/decentring and base decentre are spelling variants. Register: academic. Commonness: moderately common in humanities (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
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