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Literary notes about Displace (AI summary)

The word "displace" is employed with rich versatility throughout literature, often evoking both literal and metaphorical shifts. It can suggest the delicate act of replacing one state of being with another, as when the splendor of a new day is overlaid by divine light ([1]), or when a cherished image is supplanted by fresh admiration ([2], [3]). At the same time, authors use it to denote the physical movement or removal of objects—from the shifting of snow and stones ([4], [5]) to the displacement of massive ships ([6], [7]). Additionally, "displace" serves to illustrate the abstract process of supplanting old ideas or established orders with newer, transformative ones ([8], [9]), highlighting its enduring appeal as a dynamic literary device.
  1. Delicately to displace The day, and plant it fairer in Thy face; 1 King.
    — from In The Yule-Log Glow, Book IV by Harrison S. (Harrison Smith) Morris
  2. His innocent admiration of the regal beauty [473] that besieged him, did not for a moment displace the absent Margaret's image.
    — from The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages by Charles Reade
  3. The image of that lovely and unfortunate Girl still lived in his heart, and baffled all Virginia's efforts to displace it.
    — from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. Lewis
  4. Shovels, hands, boards—anything, everything that could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition.
    — from The Entire Project Gutenberg Works of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
  5. He began by moving his bed, and looked around for anything with which he could pierce the wall, penetrate the moist cement, and displace a stone.
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  6. These ships displace 22,640 tons, the length on water line is 610 ft., and the extreme breadth 96 1 ⁄ 2 ft.
    — from The Fleets at War by Archibald Hurd
  7. They displace 3,350 tons, and have turbines of 18,000 h.p., giving a speed of 25 knots.
    — from The Fleets at War by Archibald Hurd
  8. A new doctrine does not necessarily displace an older one.
    — from The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism by Franz Valery Marie Cumont
  9. A new faith arises which would displace the ancient traditions.
    — from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park

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