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dissipate
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
dissipate
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
energy
▪ The net effect of these factors is to dissipate the energy of the returning hammer.
▪ As penniless brokers they often had to dissipate energy on make-do and mend activities.
▪ Such materials char and melt, rapidly absorbing and dissipating energy as they do so.
heat
▪ One has low power requirements, thereby dissipating little heat, the other has high-density circuitry.
▪ More efficient drives dissipate less heat and hence require smaller heat sinks-traditionally the largest component.
▪ This energy is dissipated as heat, and increases the amount of disorder in the universe.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ An evaporation system is used to dissipate heat from the sun and protect the shuttle's electronics.
▪ She had dissipated her fortune by the time she was twenty-five.
▪ The gas cloud had dissipated by late morning.
▪ They dissipated their inheritance money in a very short period of time.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Close to, the illusion of glowing feyness dissipated.
▪ He achieved little in his work and dissipated much of his time in an uncongenial student fraternity.
▪ How does a person not lose him or herself when he or she dissipates such a powerful building block of humanity?
▪ Kirov's anger dissipated somewhat as he played the recording over a couple of times.
▪ My father waited for the energy of my attack to dissipate.
▪ The other method is to dissipate the extra 3. 2 kilometers per second by passing through the upper atmosphere.
▪ The solid nitrogen is also dissipating faster than expected.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
dissipate

dissipate \dis"si*pate\ (d[i^]s"s[i^]*p[=a]t), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Dissipated; p. pr. & vb. n. Dissipating.] [L. dissipatus, p. p. of dissipare; dis- + an obsolete verb sipare, supare. to throw.]

  1. To scatter completely; to disperse and cause to disappear; -- used esp. of the dispersion of things that can never again be collected or restored.

    Dissipated those foggy mists of error.
    --Selden.

    I soon dissipated his fears.
    --Cook.

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

  2. To destroy by wasteful extravagance or lavish use; to squander.

    The vast wealth . . . was in three years dissipated.
    --Bp. Burnet.

    Syn: To disperse; scatter; dispel; spend; squander; waste; consume; lavish.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
dissipate

early 15c., from Latin dissipatus, past participle of dissipare "to spread abroad, scatter, disperse; squander, disintegrate," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + supare "to throw, scatter," from PIE *swep- "to throw, sling, cast" (cognates: Lithuanian supu "to swing, rock," Old Church Slavonic supo "to strew"). Related: Dissipated; dissipates; dissipating.

Wiktionary
dissipate

vb. 1 To drive away, disperse. 2 To use up or waste. 3 To vanish by dispersion.

WordNet
dissipate

  1. v. to cause to separate and go in different directions; "She waved her hand and scattered the crowds" [syn: disperse, dispel, break up, scatter]

  2. move away from each other; "The crowds dispersed"; "The children scattered in all directions when the teacher approached"; [syn: disperse, scatter, spread out]

  3. spend frivolously and unwisely; "Fritter away one's inheritance" [syn: fritter, frivol away, shoot, fritter away, fool, fool away]

  4. live a life or pleasure, especially with respect to alcoholic consumption

Usage examples of "dissipate".

The failure of Impeachment, though fatal to his success, did not dissipate the support which his long services and marked fidelity had commanded, without any of the adventitious aids of power.

Icefire dissipated, and the twisting coronal glow around the edge-effect airfoils faded away, and Melinda started breathing again as she looked it over.

The amnionic fluid dissipated around him and Shar, carrying away with it the suggestive odor of a bitter struggle against death.

This formidable league, however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving any traces behind in Germany.

Thus comforted, she betook herself again to rest, while he sat down in an elbow-chair at some distance from the bedside, and, in a soft voice, began the conversation with her on the subject of those visitations from above, which, though undertaken on pretence of dissipating her fear and anxiety, was, in reality, calculated for the purpose of augmenting both.

Cheerful greetings from the other reporters, delivered in accents as diverse as brash Brooklynese and a Charleston drawl, helped dissipate them.

In 1821 he died, and my father succeeded him, and dissipated most of the money.

She was oddly reluctant to leave Dominick, but at least the tension she felt in his presence dissipated once he was out of sight.

Head Centre Stephens had placed in supreme charge of the affairs of the Fenian Brotherhood in America, was charged by Colonel Roberts and his colleagues with having dipped too deep into the treasury and by extravagance and other questionable methods dissipated the funds of the Brotherhood.

The island soon showed itself through the dissipating fogs, first the shore, then the summits.

I squinted past the footlights to the smoky and inadequately lit room, my anger at Van Ryder dissipating into stunned disbelief as I took in the scene.

Diamandes entered with his cloak draped foppishly over his shoulders, gave offhand, sleepy, dissipated greetings and stared with his round eyes at the disturbed house.

Of the gases given off by explosives, those resulting from black powder are accompanied by considerable odor and smoke, and, consequently, the miners go back more slowly after the shots, allowing time for the gases to be dissipated by the ventilation.

Nathaniel George and Janet Helvetia would rest upon a seat, no living creature within sight, save perhaps a passing policeman or some dissipated cat.

One bad result proceeded from this friendly familiarity, that of establishing or originating the charge that Holbein, as a young man, at least, was coarse and dissipated in his habits.