dissipate
/ˈdɪsɪpeɪt/
dissipate verb: to drive away, disperse.
Verb
dissipate (third-person singular simple present dissipates, present participle dissipating, simple past and past participle dissipated)
- To drive away, disperse.
- August 1773, James Cook, journal entry
I soon dissipated his fears. - The extreme tendency of civilization is to dissipate all intellectual energy.1817, William Hazlitt, The Round Table
- August 1773, James Cook, journal entry
- To use up or waste; squander.
- The vast wealth […] was in three years dissipated.1679–1715, Gilbert Burnet, “(please specify the page)”, in The History of the Reformation of the Church of England., London: […] T[homas] H[odgkin] for Richard Chiswell, […]
- So much for the effort and ingenuity of Montmartre. All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of the word "dissipate"—to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something.1931, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited
- To vanish by dispersion.
- To cause energy to be lost through its conversion to heat.
- The traction motors serve as generators when dynamic braking is used, the generated output being dissipated in fan-cooled resistance banks mounted in a removable roof section.1960 April, “English Electric diesels for the Sudan Railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 218
- Regenerative braking is retained. Like rheostatic braking, this uses the traction motors to provide a braking effort, but the current developed is fed back into the overhead catenary rather than dissipated through resistance banks.2023 July 26, David Clough, “Technology progression defines Class 93”, in RAIL, number 988, page 54
- To be dissolute in conduct.
Adjective
dissipate (comparative more dissipate, superlative most dissipate)
dissipate meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Telugu and Malayalam
dissipate in Urdu
- اللے تللے کرنا, منتشر کرنا
dissipate in Bengali
- অপচয় করা, উড়িয়ে দেওয়া
dissipate in Telugu
- to dissipate, to do away with
- భంజించు bhañjiñcu
dissipate in Malayalam
- ചീന്തുക, ചിതറുക, തുരത്തുക, നശിപ്പിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- dissipate in Kannada
- ಬೀರು bīru
Examples of dissipate in a sentence
- A smoke ring persists for a surprisingly long time, illustrating the slow rate at which viscosity dissipates the energy of a vortex.
- Thankfully the tension dissipates when the waitress returns to ask about dessert.
- Whenever the system is dismembered to examine its components, this binding energy dissipates.
Forms of dissipate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | dissipates |
| present participle | dissipating |
| past participle | dissipated |
| past | dissipated |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more dissipate |
| superlative | most dissipate |
Origin of dissipate
The verb is first attested in 1425, in Middle English, the adjective from 1606 to 1765; from Middle English dissipaten, from Latin dissipātus, perfect passive participle of dissipō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), also written dissupō (“to scatter, disperse, demolish, destroy, squander, dissipate”), from dis- (“apart”) + supō (“to throw”). Doublet of dissipe (“to dissipate”), now obsolete.
Words formed from dissipate
Questions about dissipate
- What does dissipate mean?
- Dissipate means to drive away, disperse.
- What is dissipate in Urdu?
- Dissipate in Urdu is اللے تللے کرنا, منتشر کرنا. See Dissipate meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is dissipate?
- Dissipate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce dissipate?
- Dissipate is pronounced /ˈdɪsɪpeɪt/.
- What is the past tense of dissipate?
- The past tense of dissipate is dissipated.
Words near dissipate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dissipate (page history and authors); dissipate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Dissipate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); భంజించు (Telugu) (page history and authors); dissipate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಬೀರು (Kannada) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-ca-dissipate.oga.
Cite this entry: “dissipate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dissipate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.