Origin Stories: Supplant
“Origin story” is an expression for a superhero’s backstory — for instance, Superman was born on Krypton just before it was destroyed. Many words also have fascinating origin stories. While English comes largely from Latin (and from Greek, and from Latin through French and Spanish, with some Germanic roots and a bit of Sanskrit, etc.), you’ll find that word usage can change quite bit over a couple thousand years.
Supplant means “take the place of, displace, especially through sneaky tactics.”
In the 1950s, many people took cod liver oil as a health supplement. Today, fish oil capsules and flaxseed oil have supplanted the smelly old standby our grandparents used.
He did achieve his dream of becoming CEO, but only after supplanting our previous CEO by wresting control while she was battling cancer.
Some related words are:
Outstrip (surpass, exceed; be larger or better than; leave behind)
Overshadow (cast a shadow over, make to seem less important)
Supersede (replace or cause to be set aside)
Eclipse (obscure, darken, make less important)
Supplant comes from the Latin for to trip up (planta meant the sole of the foot). To supplant something is like a more mature version of sticking your leg out into the aisle so someone falls on his face.
The same root, “planta”, appears in the foot condition plantar fasciitis.