My Word Of The Day, Dissipate

Dissipate

/ˈdɪs.ɪ.peɪt/ verb [I or T] formal

What does it mean?

;

• to (cause to) gradually disappear or waste

Example:

The well's suffocation coincided with the release of a federal report this week showing that only about a quarter of the oil lost to the leak remains in or along the shores of the Gulf, with the rest having dissipated or otherwise disappeared. The remaining 53 million gallons, though, would be enough alone to rank among the nation's worst spills. Quoted from:Yahoo! News

Etymology:

1530s, from L. dissipatus , pp. of dissipare "to spread abroad, scatter, disperse; squander, disintegrate," fromdis- "apart" ( seedis- ) + supare "to throw, scatter," from PIE *swep- "to throw, sling, cast" (cf. Lit.supu "to swing, rock," O.C.S. supo " to strew").

Synonyms:

• disappear, dispel, disperse, dissolve, drive away, evaporate, scatter, vanish

Posted in: English, MWOTD, Vocabulary