replacement
Americannoun
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the act of replacing.
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a person or thing that replaces another.
summer replacements for vacationing staff; a replacement for a broken dish.
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Military. a sailor, soldier, or airman assigned to fill a vacancy in a military unit.
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Also called metasomatism. Geology. the process of practically simultaneous removal and deposition by which a new mineral grows in the body of an old one.
noun
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the act or process of replacing
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a person or thing that replaces another
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geology the growth of a mineral within another of different chemical composition by gradual simultaneous deposition and removal
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Also called: petrification. a process of fossilization by gradual substitution of mineral matter for the original organic matter
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of replacement
Explanation
A replacement is the thing that fills in for something that's missing, or the act of substituting for the missing thing. The replacement for your absent teacher is an annoying substitute. Sigh. When kids lose their baby teeth, replacements soon grow in their places. And when kids need to have their teeth cleaned but their dentist is on vacation, her replacement will be in charge of taking x-rays and checking for cavities. Replacement comes from the verb replace, which adds the "back" prefix re- to place, "to put somewhere."
Vocabulary lists containing replacement
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The 43-year-old was named the replacement for Neal Ardley in March and won two of those six matches to guide the club to a 10th-placed finish last season.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
In crafting the replacement tariffs, administration officials have said they would devise levies at similar levels to the expiring levies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
It’s also used as a replacement for water, typically in dishes like pasta and noodles.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
Also, I live in Florida, where windshield replacement is typically covered without a deductible, but does that matter if the rental was in Maryland?
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026
He opens his mouth and points to the fake replacement, a little whiter than all the rest.
From "The House That Lou Built" by Mae Respicio
It is understood The Eagles want a deal worth a minimum £60m for the 26-year-old and have started looking at potential replacements, with Ausburg's Chrislain Matsima among the players monitored.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Another programme offers eligible residents repairs or replacements to their air conditioning systems.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Before Slaughter, presidents who wanted to reshape a multimember commission generally needed to wait for the commissioners’ terms to expire to nominate replacements who shared their policy preferences.
From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2026
Air bags have saved tens of thousands of lives, but they can pose dangers to drivers when improperly assembled replacements are installed in used cars whose original bags have deployed in a previous accident.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
When we think of major overseas population movements, we tend to focus on those since Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, and on the resulting replacements of non-Europeans by Europeans within historic times.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.