Undisplaced

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Remaining in its original place and not having been shifted, moved or dislodged from where it was
2. Staying exactly where it was, with nothing having forced it out of position or knocked it loose
3. Not pushed, moved or dislodged from its initial location, so still fixed in its first position

Etymology: "Undisplaced" is a plain formation: the prefix "un-", meaning "not", attached to "displaced". "Displaced" itself comes from "dis-", meaning "apart" or "away", and "place", which entered English from Old French and ultimately from Latin "platea", meaning "broad street" or "open space". Put together, "displaced" describes something pushed out of its position, and "undisplaced" describes something that has stayed where it was. The word is most often used in medicine and geology, where it marks a bone that has broken without its fragments shifting out of alignment, or a rock layer that has not moved along a fault. A hairline fracture that stays aligned is called undisplaced, which is why the term matters to doctors reading an X-ray: it tells them the bone can usually heal without surgery.

Synonyms: undislocated, unmoved

Antonyms: displaced