1. The expulsion of someone; such as, a tenant from the ownership of land or other property by the process of law: There was a dispossession of Jason's next door neighbors because the couple failed to pay their taxes over a period of five years.
2. Etymology: from Old French despossesser, "to dispossess", from des-, "dis-, lack of, not" + possesser, "possess" which stands forpots-sidere, literally "to sit as a master".

The first element is a contraction of potis, "able, mighty, powerful"; while the second element is related to sedere, "to sit" and "to sit down".