deracinate

tr.v., -nat·ed, -nat·ing, -nates.

1. To pull out by the roots; uproot.
2. To displace from one's native or accustomed environment.

[From French déraciner, from Old French desraciner : des-, de- + racine, root (from Late Latin rādīcīna , from Latin rādīx, rādīc-).]

deracination de·rac'i·na'tion n.

(di-RAS-uh-nayt)

verb tr.
1. To uproot.
2. To displace someone or something from a native culture or environment.

Etymology
From French deraciner, from de- + racine (root), from Late Latin radicina, from Latin radix (root), ultimately from Indo-European root wrad (root) which is also the source of words, such as root, wort, licorice, radical, radish, rutabaga, eradicate, and ramify

Usage
"There is an acute paradox here: the well-meaning China hands award the Olympics to Beijing; that empowers the government to deracinate the wild grass growing around its feet." — Bruce Gilley; Books of the Times; The New York Times; May 19, 2004. "'We lived in a an apartment that was part of a series of 1950s housing projects, and every floor was inhabited by a family that came from a different country. There was a sense of all these deracinated identities that were unrelated to one another or to the environment they lived in, all of them engaged in continuing some kind of dialogue with their countries of origin,' she told me when we first met." — Talya Halkin; Domestic Nightmare; Jerusalem Post (Israel); Feb 26, 2004.

---

to uproot

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The verb has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: move (people) forcibly from their homeland into a new and foreign environment
  Synonyms: displace, uproot

Meaning #2: pull up by or as if by the roots
  Synonyms: uproot, extirpate, root out

---