Contextualizebeta

dissipate

verb
/ˈdɪsɪpeɪt/

Etymology

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.

  1. derived from dissipātus
  2. inherited from dissipaten

Definitions

  1. 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.

  2. To use up or waste

    To use up or waste; squander.

    • The vast wealth […] was in three years dissipated.

  3. To vanish by dispersion.

  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. 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.
      • 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.

    2. To be dissolute in conduct.

    3. dissipated

The neighborhood

Derived

dissipater, dissipator, dissipatory

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for dissipate. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA