MEANING
1. To pull a plant or other rooted thing from its place in the soil.
2. To uproot a person or community from its home, culture, or established attachments.
Use it for
Describe literal or cultural uprooting.Use its literal root imagery to make displacement feel bodily and cultural.
Words that belong together
- deracinate a plant
- deracinate weeds
- deracinate a community
- culturally deracinated
On the page
The storm deracinated the young cedar and left its roots exposed.
Forced migration deracinated families from the valley where generations had lived.
Nearby words
Opposite meanings
Word forms
- Base
- deracinate
- Past tense
- deracinated
- Past participle
- deracinated
- Present participle
- deracinating
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- deracinate
- Present continuous
- am/is/are deracinating
- Present perfect
- have/has deracinated
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been deracinating
- Past
- deracinated
- Past continuous
- was/were deracinating
- Past perfect
- had deracinated
- Past perfect continuous
- had been deracinating
- Future
- will deracinate
- Future continuous
- will be deracinating
- Future perfect
- will have deracinated
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been deracinating
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Rare and formal; the literal sense concerns removing roots, while the figurative sense concerns severing social or cultural ties. Sense 2: Rare and formal; the figurative sense is common in discussions of migration, culture, and belonging.
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