dissipate

present singular third person dissipates · participle present dissipating · participle past dissipated · past dissipated

1. transitiveTo drive away, disperse.

   August 1773, James Cook, journal entry I soon dissipated his fears.

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   The extreme tendency of civilization is to dissipate all intellectual energy.

   1817, William Hazlitt, The Round Table

2. transitiveTo 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, […]

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   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

   If he prefers the bar he can exchange views with a Major de Wildman of Lord knew whose army, who calls himself King Farouk's equerry and claims to have a private telephone link to Cairo so that he can report the winning numbers and take royal orders inspired by soothsayers on how to dissipate the wealth of Egypt.

   1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy

3. intransitiveTo vanish by dispersion.
4. natural sciencesTo 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

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   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

5. colloquialdatedintransitiveTo be dissolute in conduct.

comparative more dissipate · superlative most dissipate

1. obsoletedissipated