Amass and dissipate are opposites, especially of wealth. Amass means to gather a great quantity by deliberate effort — a fortune, power, vast holdings. Dissipate means to scatter and fade to nothing, and of money it means to squander — a fortune can dissipate as surely as mist. One painstakingly heaps a great deal up; the other lets it scatter away to nothing.
Amass builds a great store; dissipate scatters it to nothing. From massa ('a lump') and dissipare ('to scatter'), they make a sharp pair, most of all with fortunes: one generation amasses wealth through effort and ambition, and the next dissipates it through waste. Where one gathers and keeps, the other scatters and loses.
amass
To amass is to gather a great quantity on purpose — a fortune, an army, a vast collection, power. Where things accumulate almost on their own and you gather whatever is to hand, to amass is to build up a large amount through deliberate effort, with the emphasis on sheer size. It often carries a tint of ambition or greed: people amass wealth, regimes amass weapons. From the Latin massa, 'a lump', what you amass ends up a substantial, weighty whole.
dissipate
To dissipate is to scatter and fade until nothing is left: fog dissipates as the sun climbs, tension dissipates after an argument, energy dissipates as heat. Unlike disperse, where a thing spreads out but still exists somewhere, what dissipates loses itself completely — it thins into the air and is gone. From the Latin dissipare, 'to scatter', it can also mean to squander: a fortune may dissipate as surely as mist. Either way, something concentrated ends as nothing.
| amass | dissipate | |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | gather a great quantity by effort | scatter and fade to nothing; squander |
| Of money | build a fortune | fritter a fortune away |
| Direction | heaps up, keeps | scatters, loses |
| Often with | a fortune, wealth, power | a fortune, fog, tension, energy |
| Noun | amassment | dissipation |
| Example | He amassed a fortune. | His heir dissipated it. |
They are opposites — hoard vs squander. Amass is the treasure mound: a great quantity heaped up by effort and kept (amass a fortune, amass power). Dissipate is the fog burning off: something scattered and faded to nothing — and of money, frittered away (dissipate a fortune). If a great deal is gathered and kept, it is amassed; if it scatters away to nothing, it is dissipated.
amass
- iThe merchant amassed a fortune in spices.
- iiShe amassed enormous political power.
- iiiThey amassed reserves against hard times.
dissipate
- iHe dissipated the family fortune at the tables.
- iiTheir early lead dissipated in the second half.
- iiiThe morning fog dissipated by ten.
They are antonyms, sharpest with wealth: a fortune is amassed by one and dissipated by another. Amass stresses deliberate gathering and keeping; dissipate stresses scattering and loss. Note that dissipate also means simply to fade away (fog, tension), where amass has no part.