dissipation

plural dissipations

1. countableuncountableThe act of dissipating or dispersing; a state of dispersion or separation; dispersion; waste.

   the famous dissipation of mankind

   a. 1677 (date written), Matthew Hale, The Primitive Origination of Mankind, Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature, London: […] William Godbid, for William Shrowsbery, […], published 1677, →OCLC

   1 more example

   without loss or dissipation of the matter

   1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC

2. countableuncountableA dissolute course of life, in which health, money, etc., are squandered in pursuit of pleasure; profuseness in immoral indulgence, as late hours, riotous living, etc.; dissoluteness.

   18th century, Patrick Henry in a parliamentary debate to reclaim the spendthrift from his dissipation and extravagance

   4 more examples

   I rose by candle-light, and consumed, in the intensest application, the hours which every other individual of our party wasted in enervating slumbers, from the hesternal dissipation or debauch.

   1828, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XX, in Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 196

   He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation.

   1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], “chapter VIII”, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC

   [...] This is a surprise attack, and I’d no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape. I am sure, Lord Stranleigh, that he has been descanting on the distraction of the woods and the camp, or perhaps the metropolitan dissipation of Philadelphia, [...]

   1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad, →OL

   An oil lamp burned upon a high, old-fashioned mantel, casting its dim rays over a dozen repulsive figures. All but one were men. The other was a woman of about thirty. Her face, marked by low passions and dissipation, might once have been lovely.

   1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “What Happened in the Rue Maule”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, pages 34–35

3. countableuncountableA trifle which wastes time or distracts attention.

   Prevented from finishing them [the letters] a thousand avocations and dissipations.

   1733 May 28, letter from Alexander Pope to Jonathan Swift

4. countableuncountablenatural sciencesA loss of energy, usually as heat, from a dynamic system.

   They conclude[…] the planet will have a final period of rotation between 56 and 88 days, depending on the assumed form of the dissipation function.

   1965 November 6, G. Colombo, “Rotational Period of the Planet Mercury”, in Nature, volume 208, number 575, →DOI