disperse
See also: dispersé
English Edit
Etymology Edit
From Middle French disperser, from Latin dispersus, past participle of dispergō (“to scatter abroad, disperse”), from dis- (“apart”) + spargō (“to scatter”); see sparse.
Pronunciation Edit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /dɪˈspɜːs/
- (General American) IPA(key): /dɪˈspɝs/
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s
Audio (UK) (file) - Hyphenation: dis‧perse
Verb Edit
disperse (third-person singular simple present disperses, present participle dispersing, simple past and past participle dispersed)
- (transitive, intransitive) To scatter in different directions.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:disperse
- The Jews are dispersed among all nations.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 15:7, column 1:
- The lippes of the wiſe diſperſe knowledge: but the heart of the fooliſh, doeth not ſo.
- (transitive, intransitive) To break up and disappear; to dissipate.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:destroy
- (transitive, intransitive) To disseminate.
- (physics, transitive, intransitive) To separate rays of light, etc., according to wavelength; to refract.
- (transitive, intransitive) To distribute throughout.
Usage notes Edit
- Do not confuse with the monetary word disburse, despite the two being near homophones and having a degree of semantic similarity (in which disbursed money may be dispersed among expenses). A mnemonic to help make the difference obvious (which uses a cognate of each word) is that dĭs-burs-ing is taking money out of the purse, whereas dĭ-spers-ing causes something to be sparsely scattered.
Derived terms Edit
Related terms Edit
Translations Edit
to scatter
|
to dissipate
|
to disseminate
|
to refract
|
to distribute
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Adjective Edit
disperse (comparative more disperse, superlative most disperse)
- Scattered or spread out.
- 1998, James-Yves Roger, Technologies for the Information Society: Developments and Opportunities:
- Australia itself is a very wide and very disperse country, where the distance problems significantly affect also the "internal" customer-supplier chains.
- 2014, Didier J. Dubois, Readings in Fuzzy Sets for Intelligent Systems, page 85:
- In particular, a very crisp quantifier such as “for all,” “there exists,” “at least 50 percent” tend to have less disperse weighting vectors while fuzzier quantifiers such as many tend to have a more disperse weighting vector.
Derived terms Edit
Anagrams Edit
French Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Verb Edit
disperse
- inflection of disperser:
Anagrams Edit
German Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Audio (file)
Adjective Edit
disperse
- inflection of dispers:
Italian Edit
Etymology 1 Edit
Adjective Edit
disperse
Participle Edit
disperse f pl
Etymology 2 Edit
Noun Edit
disperse f pl
Etymology 3 Edit
Verb Edit
disperse
- third-person singular past historic of disperdere
Anagrams Edit
Latin Edit
Pronunciation Edit
- (Classical) IPA(key): /disˈper.se/, [d̪ɪs̠ˈpɛrs̠ɛ]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /disˈper.se/, [d̪isˈpɛrse]
Participle Edit
disperse
References Edit
- “disperse”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “disperse”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- disperse in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
Portuguese Edit
Verb Edit
disperse
- inflection of dispersar:
Spanish Edit
Pronunciation Edit
Verb Edit
disperse
- inflection of dispersar: