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dissipate

/ˈdɪsɪpeɪt//ˈdɪsɪpeɪt/·verb
to scatter and gradually vanish; to fade away to nothing
Fig. 1 — At first I can barely make out the hills for the white that lies over them — a thick, low cloud snagged on the field, soft at every edge, going nowhere.
01Definition

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.

02In use
  • iThe morning mist dissipated as soon as the sun began to build up real heat.
  • iiHer anger dissipated almost as quickly as it had begun to surge.
  • iiiHeat dissipates fast in thin mountain air, so the climbers' warmth did not linger.
03Collocations
  • the fog dissipated
  • tension dissipated
  • dissipate energy
  • dissipate heat
  • dissipate a fortune

Family dissipation (noun) · dissipated (adjective)

04Relations

=disperse, evaporate, vanish, scatter, fade

≠accumulate, gather, concentrate

05Compared
PairThe difference
dissipate vs accumulatea quantity grows toward more → accumulate; it scatters away to nothing → dissipate.
dissipate vs amalgamateseparate organizations built into one lasting whole → amalgamate; something scattered and faded until nothing is left → dissipate.
dissipate vs amassa great deal gathered and kept → amass; it scatters away to nothing → dissipate.
dissipate vs assemblefit parts together into a whole, or gather in one place → assemble; scatter and fade until nothing is left → dissipate.
dissipate vs blendmix things into one lasting seamless whole → blend; scatter and fade until nothing is left → dissipate.

Also compared with build up, cluster, coalesce, coincide, collect, combine, come together, concentrate, congregate, consolidate, converge, deplete, disband, disperse, dissolve, diverge, divide, fuse, garner, gather, integrate, intersect, join, meet, merge, pile up, radiate, scatter, separate, split, unite

06TOEFL & IELTS

Common in science writing — 'energy/heat dissipates' — and in describing emotions that fade, such as tension or anger. Keep the nuance against its near-synonyms: disperse spreads something out but it still exists, deplete is a supply used up, while dissipate is a fading to nothing. Note the adjective 'dissipated' can also mean dissolute (a dissipated lifestyle).

07Asked
What does it mean to dissipate energy or heat?
To spread energy out until it can no longer do useful work — friction dissipates a car's motion as heat, and that heat thins into the surroundings and cannot be gathered back. Physicists stress the irreversibility: dissipated energy is not destroyed but degraded, scattered into the environment. It is the word's core made physical — something concentrated ending as nothing usable.
How do you pronounce dissipate?
DISS-ih-payt (/ˈdɪsɪpeɪt/) — the stress lands on the first syllable, not the middle. The common slip is 'di-SIP-ate', leaning on the -sip-; the beat is really up front on DISS, with -sipate trailing off lightly. Three syllables, front-loaded — and the noun shifts the stress along: dissi-PAY-tion.
What does 'dissipated' mean when it describes a person?
Dissolute — worn down by a life of overindulgence in pleasure, drink, or excess. 'A dissipated lifestyle', 'a dissipated old rake'. It is a surprising second sense, but the logic holds: such a life dissipates a person's health, money, and promise the way sun dissipates fog, until little is left. The tone is disapproving and rather literary.
Does dissipate mean to waste?
In one of its senses, yes — to squander, especially money or advantages, by frittering them away. 'He dissipated the family fortune' means it thinned out and vanished, not through one disaster but through steady careless spending. It is the same fading-to-nothing as fog burning off, applied to a resource rather than a mist.
What is the difference between dissipate and dissolve?
Dissolve is to melt into a liquid — sugar dissolves in tea, and it is still there, just spread through the water. Dissipate is to thin into air and be gone, the way the fog burns off the hills in the scene above until nothing of it remains. One disappears into a solution you could recover; the other loses itself completely.
What is the noun form of dissipate?
Dissipation — and it carries both of the verb's lives: the physics sense (energy dissipation, the loss of usable energy as heat) and the moral sense (a life of dissipation, meaning dissolute excess). Same noun, two worlds — the thermodynamics lecture and the cautionary tale both reach for it.
What is the difference between dissipate and disperse?
The quick tell: when something disperses it spreads out but still exists somewhere, while what dissipates loses itself completely and is gone. The full contrast, with both animated scenes, is on the disperse vs dissipate page in the 'Compared' list above.