My Virtual Reading Room

deracinate - v., to pull up by the roots, uproot; displace from one's native environment.


Also, by metaphoric extension, forced resettlement. This would make a pretty good name for an alterna-rock band, of the young & disaffected type, though the word can also have a positive sense of liberating or being liberated from a culture or its norms. The noun form is deracination. Adopted in 1599 (and used soon after by Shakespeare) from French déraciner, from Old French desraciner, de-root, from Latin roots de-, in the sense of undo + radix, root.

Och, and the girls whose poor hearts you deracinate,
Whirl and bewilder and flutter and fascinate
Faith, it's so killing you are, you assassinate, —
Murder’s the word for you, Barney McGee!

—Richard Hovey, Barney McGee

---L.

(reposted from prettygoodword on 1word1day)

Gene therapy could help people overcome meth addiction (promising research)

Those Signs of Liquid Water on Mars May Not Be Water After All (rather disappointing)

10 Things We Didn't Know Last Week (science, medical research, technology, etc.)

What Ever Happened to the Russian Revolution?, from The Smithsonian Magazine

(an excellent article for the recent centennial)