deracinate means To pull up by the roots; to uproot; to extirpate. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 80 out of 100.
Why this word is great
DERACINATE — [Verb] To pull up by the roots; to forcibly remove from one's native or accustomed environment. From French déraciner ("to uproot"), from racine ("root"), from Latin rādīx, rādīcis ("a root"), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *wréh₂ds ("branch, root"). Unlike "eradicate," which aims to annihilate a pestilence with clinical finality, or "displace," which merely notes a change of location, "deracinate" speaks to a specific violence against the source of life itself. It is the sickening rasp of a sapling wrenched from rain-softened earth; the exile haunted by the phantom scent of cedar and street food; the tradition withering in the sterile air of forgetting. To be deracinated is to live with the ghost of your own foundation, forever conscious of the soil left gripping in the dark.
verb
- To pull up by the roots; to uproot; to extirpate.“Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture!”
- To force (people) from their homeland to a new or foreign location.
- To liberate or be liberated from a culture or its norms.“Observing the highest echelons of Indian society, she notes the way in which some Indians become completely — almost absurdly — anglicized or deracinated.”