Blend and scatter are opposites. Blend is to mix things into a smooth, uniform whole in which the parts can no longer be told apart. Scatter is to throw or send things in different directions so they spread out irregularly. Blend draws things into one seamless whole; scatter flings one arrangement apart at random.
One brings things into a single smooth whole; the other throws them apart in disorder. Blend mixes separate things until no seam is left — two colours make a third. Scatter throws things out in every direction so they land with no pattern at all. You blend blue and yellow into green; a break shot scatters the balls across the table. One ends in one uniform thing; the other in a mess flung wide.
blend
To blend is to mix things so thoroughly that they form one smooth, even whole with no visible join — flavours blend, colours blend, voices blend into harmony. From the Old Norse blanda, 'to mix'. Unlike things that merely combine and stay distinct, what blends loses its separate edge; and to blend in is to match your surroundings so closely you go unnoticed. A blend is also the noun for the result you can merge from parts kept in set proportions: a coffee blend, a blend of styles.
scatter
To scatter is to send things flying apart so they land here and there with no order — a handful of gravel flung across a path, papers blown off a desk, a flock startled into the air. The word stresses suddenness and irregularity: what scatters is strewn unevenly and left wherever it falls, not neatly distributed. It works both ways, much like its cousin disperse — a crowd can scatter, or police can scatter it — but where disperse suggests an even thinning-away, scatter keeps that sense of a sudden, random fling.
| blend | scatter | |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | mix into a smooth, uniform whole | throw things apart in all directions |
| The result | one seamless whole | an irregular, patternless spread |
| Manner | worked together, smooth | sudden, random |
| Often with | colours, flavours, sounds, styles | balls, papers, seeds, a crowd |
| Noun | a blend / blending | scattering / a scatter |
| Example | Blend the two colours. | The papers scattered. |
Ask whether order is being made or broken. Blend works separate things into one smooth whole — the blue and yellow gone, only green left. Scatter destroys an arrangement in an instant — a racked triangle of balls flung apart with no pattern. If things merge into one uniform whole, that is blend; if an arrangement is thrown apart at random, that is scatter.
blend
- iBlend the colours until the join disappears.
- iiThe band blends folk and electronic into one sound.
- iiiHe blended into the crowd and was gone.
scatter
- iA gust scattered the papers across the yard.
- iiThe crowd scattered the moment the alarm sounded.
- iiiShe scattered the seeds by hand across the bed.
Blend is deliberate and ends in a smooth whole; scatter stresses randomness and speed and can be transitive (the wind scattered the leaves) or intransitive (the crowd scattered). Blend's other sense — to fit in unnoticed — is the near-opposite of scattering, which makes things conspicuous by flinging them apart.