dis·pos·sess

(dĭs′pə-zĕs′)

tr.v. dis·pos·sessed, dis·pos·sess·ing, dis·pos·sess·es

To deprive (another) of the possession or occupancy of something, such as real property.

dis′pos·ses′sion (-zĕsh′ən) n.

dis′pos·ses′sor n.

dis′pos·ses′so·ry (-zĕs′ə-rē) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	dispossession - the expulsion of someone (such as a tenant) from the possession of land by process of law legal ouster, eviction due process, due process of law - (law) the administration of justice according to established rules and principles; based on the principle that a person cannot be deprived of life or liberty or property without appropriate legal procedures and safeguards ouster - a wrongful dispossession actual eviction - the physical ouster of a tenant from the leased premises; the tenant is relieved of any further duty to pay rent retaliatory eviction - an eviction in reprisal for the tenant's good-faith complaints against the landlord; illegal in many states law, jurisprudence - the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order"
	2.	dispossession - freeing from evil spirits exorcism supernaturalism - a belief in forces beyond ordinary human understanding summoning, evocation - calling up supposed supernatural forces by spells and incantations

dispossession

noun

The condition of being deprived of what one once had or ought to have:

deprival, deprivation, divestiture, loss, privation.

Translations

dispossession

n → Enteignung f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Once, the first time, when the rent of the house was two months behind and the landlord was threatening dispossession, it was Felipe Rivera, the scrub-boy in the poor, cheap clothes, worn and threadbare, who laid sixty dollars in gold on May Sethby's desk.

View in context

The author is perhaps overly optimistic in concluding that park managers have learned from their mistakes, that relations between local people and parks have improved greatly, and that dispossession is no longer the means by which parks are created.

Disposing of Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks. (Book Reviews)

the dispossession and decimation of the First Americans'.

Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans

Why not replace him as national icon with John Ross, a Cherokee chief who resisted the dispossession of his people, and whose wife died on the Trail of Tears?

Unsung Heroes

Hearing her experiences and beginning to understand the results of two centuries of colonial dispossession and disempowerment prompted the Blackwood Reconciliation Group to seek out other former residents.

Living memorial

Today they share with fellow Palestinians bitter memories of dispossession, discrimination and injustice.

Arab Christians among Middle East's most oppressed

The first group of stories deals with family losses and absences, such as motherlessness, while the second lot of stories looks at the effects of dispossession arising from the passage of time, as well as from migration from one country to another.

Two dreams: new and selected stories

Phrases like "Dispossession by attrition is a permanent condition / That the wretched modern world endures" deal with holocaust and plague, and the contemporary ravages of AIDS are set against the age-old horrors of anti-Semitism.

Possessed

An approximate estimate of the fraction of Germans who opposed Hitler's treatment of the Jews might be obtained by a survey to determine the proportion of Israelis disturbed by the dispossession of the Palestinians.

Sanctioned sociopathy

His books about the Middle East include The Question of Palestine (1979), Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question (1988; coedited with Christopher Hitchens), and The Politics of Dispossession (1994).

Said, Edward W

Employing the framework of urban geography, he reveals how real estate came to rule American and global cities, leading to the displacement and dispossession of ethnic groups and the poor.

Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State