ImportError: cannot import name 'display' from 'IPython.core.display'

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR: IPython moved display from IPython.core.display to IPython.display. Change the import, or upgrade spacy to a release that did.

The error

ImportError: cannot import name 'display' from 'IPython.core.display'

Fix it

1. Replace the import:

   from IPython.display import display

   Expected: no import error.

2. If the bad import is inside spacy's displacy, upgrade spacy instead:

   pip install -U spacy

   Expected: new release uses the new path.

3. Verify:

   python -c "from IPython.display import display; print('ok')"

   Expected: prints ok.

When this applies

Use this when code does from IPython.core.display import display on modern IPython.

When it does not apply

If the error names a different IPython.core member, look up its new location. If IPython itself will not import, reinstall it.

Compatibility

Modern IPython (7+). IPython.display has re-exported display for years, so the new import works broadly.

Root cause

IPython reorganized its display machinery and made IPython.display the public namespace; the old IPython.core.display path stopped exporting every name. Code importing from the old path breaks.

Edge cases

HTML, Markdown, and SVG moved the same way; update all IPython.core.display imports in one pass. Libraries should import from IPython.display unconditionally now.

GitHub issue explosion/spacy#13871 reports ImportError: cannot import name 'display' from 'IPython.core.display' with a modern IPython installed, breaking spacy's displacy rendering. The verified answer: IPython moved display to the top-level IPython.display namespace, so the import becomes from IPython.display import display (spacy fixed it in a later release, so upgrading spacy also works). Full thread: https://github.com/explosion/spacy/issues/13871