replacement
Pluralreplacements
- 1Someone or something brought in to take over from another.
When the printer failed, the office ordered a replacement the same day.
She proved to be an excellent replacement for the retiring manager.
Similarsubstitute, successor, stand-in
Note
A noun built from replace and -ment, a suffix that can name both an action and its outcome. That is why the same word also covers the act of replacing. Here it names the outcome: whoever or whatever now stands in. Kevin Darlin's 2010 BBC match report shows a common pattern, with the name set directly after the noun: his replacement Mark Bunn.
- 2The act of replacing something with another in its place.
The replacement of the city's water mains will continue through the winter.
Doctors recommended a full knee replacement after the injury.
Similarsubstitution, renewal, exchange
- 3The removal of an edge of a crystal by one or more planes.
The replacement of the cube's edges produced a series of narrow new faces.
Geologists recorded a replacement along each edge of the quartz crystal.
Similartruncation
Note
A crystallographer's term for describing a crystal's geometry. One or more planes cut away a sharp edge, and narrow new faces appear where it was. It should not be read as the everyday act of replacing. The edge is not swapped for a matching one. Its line is lost, and the crystal gains faces it did not have before.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from the verb "replace" combined with the suffix "-ment".