dislocation

noun

Etymology: From Middle English, from Old French, a borrowing from Medieval Latin dislocātiō, delocatio.

1. The act of displacing, or the state of being displaced.

   “As mentioned last month in the article "Railways and the War," the emergency timetables were planned in view of the possibility of serious dislocation of transport by air raids in the early days of the war, and were regarded as the minimum service which would keep the activities of the country alive.”

   “At large stations such as Euston and Birmingham New Street, it is essential to compress the station reconstruction, re-signalling and overhead wiring into the shortest possible time, not only to minimise the period of traffic dislocation but also to ensure completion by the time the remainder of the lines is electrified.”

2. The displacement of parts of rocks or portions of strata from the situation which they originally occupied.
3. The act of dislocating, or putting out of joint; also, the condition of being thus displaced.

   “They used steroids to build strength but, more importantly, to recover from strains, pulls, dislocations.”

4. A linear defect in a crystal lattice. Because dislocations can shift within the crystal lattice, they tend to weaken the material, compared to a perfect crystal.
5. A sentence structure in which a constituent that could otherwise be either an argument or an adjunct of a clause occurs outside of and adjacent to the clause boundaries.
6. In men's gymnastics, a rotating of the shoulders when performing a backwards turn on the still rings. Many skills in acrobatics appear to involve dislocating a joint, when they actually do not.

   “The practice of contortion can be divided into three categories: backbending, frontbending and dislocation.”