disperse

disperse

See also: dispersé

English

Etymology

From Middle French disperser, from Latin dispersus, past participle of dispergō (“to scatter abroad, disperse”), from dis- (“apart”) + spargō (“to scatter”); see sparse.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪˈspɜːs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɪˈspɝs/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: dis‧perse

Verb

disperse (third-person singular simple present disperses, present participle dispersing, simple past and past participle dispersed)

1. (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 964384981, Proverbs 15:7, column 1:

     The lippes of the wiſe diſperſe knowledge: but the heart of the fooliſh, doeth not ſo.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To break up and disappear; to dissipate.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:destroy

3. (transitive, intransitive) To disseminate.
4. (physics, transitive, intransitive) To separate rays of light, etc., according to wavelength; to refract.
5. (transitive, intransitive) To distribute throughout.

Usage notes

• 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

• dedisperse
• disperser
• overdisperse
• redisperse

 

Related terms

• dispersal
• dispersible
• dispersion

Translations

to scatter

Amis: palopisaken Armenian: ցրվել (hy) (cʿrvel) (intransitive), ցրել (hy) (cʿrel) (transitive) Basque: sakabanatu Bikol Central: wagas Bulgarian: разпилявам (bg) (razpiljavam), разпръсквам (bg) (razprǎskvam), разсейвам (bg) (razsejvam) Catalan: dispersar (ca) Czech: rozesít pf, rozptýlit pf Danish: sprede Dutch: verbreiden (nl) Esperanto: dispeli, aspergi Finnish: hajottaa (fi), hajaantua (fi) French: (transitive) disperser (fr), (intransitive) se disperser (fr) Galician: esparexer, debandar, espernexar, esbandallar (gl) German: (transitive) zerstreuen (de), (intransitive) sich zerstreuen (de) Greek: Ancient: σκεδάννυμι (skedánnumi) Hungarian: szétszór (hu) Ido: difuzar (io), dispersar (io) Irish: scaoil, ruaig Italian: disperdere (it) Japanese: 退散 (ja) (たいさん, taisan) Korean: 흩다 (heutda) Latin: dissipō Manx: scaalhean (intransitive), skeayl (transitive) Maori: korara, tītari, tītaritari, whakaehu, tohatoha Middle English: sparplen Ngazidja Comorian: (intransitive) utsamɓalia Old English: tōsċrīþan Polish: rozproszyć (pl) Portuguese: dispersar (pt) Russian: рассе́ивать (ru) impf (rasséivatʹ), рассе́ять (ru) pf (rasséjatʹ), разбра́сывать (ru) impf (razbrásyvatʹ), разброса́ть (ru) pf (razbrosátʹ), рассыпа́ть (ru) impf (rassypátʹ), рассы́пать (ru) pf (rassýpatʹ), раски́дывать (ru) impf (raskídyvatʹ), раскида́ть (ru) pf (raskidátʹ) Spanish: dispersar (es) Tocharian B: käsk- ǃXóõ: khàla

to dissipate

Azerbaijani: dağılmaq (az) (intransitive), dağıtmaq (az) (transitive) Czech: rozptýlit, rozehnat (cs) Esperanto: disiĝi (eo) (intransitive) Finnish: hajottaa (fi), hajota (fi) Galician: escagallar (gl), desengrear German: dissipieren Italian: disperdere (it) Latin: dissipō Maori: whakaehu Middle English: sparplen, solven, dissolven Portuguese: dissipar (pt) Russian: разгоня́ть (ru) impf (razgonjátʹ), разогна́ть (ru) pf (razognátʹ)

to disseminate

Finnish: levittää (fi) Galician: escagallar (gl) Italian: disseminarere Portuguese: disseminar (pt) Russian: распространя́ть (ru) impf (rasprostranjátʹ), распространи́ть (ru) pf (rasprostranítʹ)

to refract

Finnish: hajottaa (fi), hajota (fi), dispergoida Galician: destranxer, aquendar (gl) Italian: disperdere (it), rifrangere (it) Portuguese: refratar Russian: преломля́ть (ru) impf (prelomljátʹ), преломи́ть (ru) pf (prelomítʹ)

to distribute

Finnish: levittää (fi) German: verteilt (de) Italian: disperdere (it), distribuire (it) Maori: tohatoha Portuguese: distribuir (pt) Russian: распространя́ть (ru) impf (rasprostranjátʹ), распространи́ть (ru) pf (rasprostranítʹ) Turkish: dağıtık (tr)

Adjective

disperse (comparative more disperse, superlative most disperse)

1. 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

• bidisperse
• disperseness
• disperse phase
• isodisperse
• monodisperse
• paucidisperse
• polydisperse

 

Anagrams

• Perseids, despiser, perseids, presides

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dis.pɛʁs/

Verb

disperse

1. inflection of disperser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams

• perdisse, prédises, prédisse, présides

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German

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

disperse

1. inflection of dispers:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

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Italian

Adjective

disperse

1. feminine plural of disperso

Participle

disperse f pl

1. feminine plural of disperso

Noun

disperse f pl

1. plural of dispersa

Verb

disperse

1. third-person singular past historic of disperdere

Anagrams

• depressi, perdessi, predisse

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Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /disˈper.se/, [d̪ɪs̠ˈpɛrs̠ɛ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /disˈper.se/, [d̪isˈpɛrse]

Participle

disperse

1. vocative masculine singular of dispersus

References

• “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

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Portuguese

Verb

disperse

1. inflection of dispersar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

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Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /disˈpeɾse/ [d̪isˈpeɾ.se]
• Rhymes: -eɾse
• Syllabification: dis‧per‧se

Verb

disperse

1. inflection of dispersar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative