Word of the Day

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

supplant

\suh-PLANT\ , transitive verb;

To take the place of (another), especially through intrigue or underhanded tactics; as, a rival supplants another.

To take the place of and serve as a substitute for.

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Quotes:

He's your rival. The one you'll have to supplant.

-- Peter Brooks, World Elsewhere

In traditional accounts, early Greek times appear as a succession of migrations; one tribe drives out and supplants another until driven out in turn by a third, and this process may have lasted many hundreds of years.

-- Jacob Burckhardt, The Greeks and Greek Civilization

Economic opportunities for a saddler and harness maker were beginning to decline . . . as railroads supplanted the stagecoach trade.

-- Dennis J. Hutchinson, The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White

Origin:

Supplant derives from Latin supplantare, "to put one's foot under another, to throw down a person by tripping up his heels," from sub-, "under" + plantare, "to stamp the ground with the foot," from planta, "the sole of the foot."