disperse
verb /dɪˈspɜːs/
/dɪˈspɜːrs/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they disperse | /dɪˈspɜːs/ /dɪˈspɜːrs/ |
| he / she / it disperses | /dɪˈspɜːsɪz/ /dɪˈspɜːrsɪz/ |
| past simple dispersed | /dɪˈspɜːst/ /dɪˈspɜːrst/ |
| past participle dispersed | /dɪˈspɜːst/ /dɪˈspɜːrst/ |
| -ing form dispersing | /dɪˈspɜːsɪŋ/ /dɪˈspɜːrsɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive, transitive] to move apart and go away in different directions; to make somebody/something do this
- The fog began to disperse.
- The crowd dispersed quickly.
- disperse somebody/something Police dispersed the protesters with tear gas.
Extra Examples- Police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.
- The cloud was dispersing as the day grew hotter.
- The crowd slowly began to disperse.
- The community was dispersed by the war.
- The pollution in the air will disperse.
- They dispersed the chemicals with a sheet of water.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- quickly
- rapidly
- widely
- …
- begin to
- around
- over
- throughout
- …
- [transitive, intransitive] disperse (something) to spread or to make something spread over a wide area synonym scatter
- The seeds are dispersed by the wind.
Extra Examples- The bird-feeding system evenly disperses food and water.
- Warm air rises and disperses throughout the building.
- geographically dispersed political and economic power
- The population in this area is quite widely dispersed.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- quickly
- rapidly
- widely
- …
- begin to
- around
- over
- throughout
- …
Word Originlate Middle English: from Latin dispers- ‘scattered’, from the verb dispergere, from dis- ‘widely’ + spargere ‘scatter, strew’.