Ousted

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Compelled to leave a position, office, or place, usually by force or legal means
2. Removed from a role or location through pressure or authority
3. Expelled from a post or area, often as a result of opposition or conflict

Etymology: "Ousted" is the past tense of "oust," and the verb's history is a tidy example of a word that looks like it should contain "out" but does not. Its ancestor is the Latin "obstare," meaning "to obstruct" or "stand in the way of," built from "ob-" (against) and "stare" (to stand). Over time, Latin's sense of blocking someone shifted toward pushing them away, and post-classical Latin used the verb in the sense of "to remove." That meaning passed into Old French as "oster," which later became modern French "ôter" (to take away or remove). Anglo-Norman speakers in England took the verb as "ouster" and "oustier," and English borrowed it from there. The resemblance to "out" is coincidental, since the two words have no shared origin, but the sense of forcibly moving something out of a position fits the verb's meaning well.

Synonyms: removed, deposed, expelled, displaced, ejected

Antonyms: installed, appointed, welcomed, retained, embraced