dispel

What it means

1. transitiveTo drive away or cause to vanish by scattering.

   The clouds and mist were soon enough dispelled by the sun.

   Synonyms: disperse

2. transitiveTo remove (fears, doubts, objections etc.) by proving them unjustified.

   It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street.[…]. He halted opposite the Privy Gardens, and, with his face turned skywards, listened until the sound of the Tower guns smote again on the ear and dispelled his doubts.

   1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, chapter I, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., →OCLC, page 01

   1 more example

   The fate of the railway from Ballater to Braemar has been invested with an air of mystery, which has never been completely dispelled. It has been suggested that Queen Victoria was opposed to a railway in the vicinity of Balmoral Castle, and intervened personally to secure the abandonment of the line beyond Ballater.

   1957 January 28, H. A. Vallance, “The Deeside Railway—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 6

   Synonyms: cast away, cast off

3. AfricatransitiveTo get rid of or manage without.

In a sentence

The clouds and mist were soon enough dispelled by the sun.

Where it comes from

1. Latindispellere“to disperse; to dispel”
2. Middle Englishdispelen
3. Englishdispel

From Middle English dispelen, from Latin dispellere (“to disperse; to dispel”).