Definition of "uprooting"

This was reproduced by the only sound that broke their supreme embrace when, a month later, the "arrangement," as her periodical uprootings were called, played the part of the horrible forceps.

1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew

[…] the vision of all the separate terrors, anguishes, uprootings and rendings apart […]

1920, Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence