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distribute

/dɪˈstrɪbjuːt//dɪˈstrɪbjuːt/·verb
to spread something out or hand it out so that it reaches across a whole
Fig. 1 — The paper round works the whole street at one steady pace.
01Definition

To distribute is to spread something across a whole — aid to villages, weight across a beam, newspapers to doorsteps — so that the parts of the whole each receive theirs. From Latin dis- ('apart') plus tribuere ('to assign'), it is the outward half of a familiar pair: where you allocate by deciding shares, you distribute by getting them out there. The word also names how things happen to lie: wealth, rainfall, and errors are all said to be distributed, evenly or otherwise, and statistics has built a whole science on the shape of that spread.

02In use
  • iVolunteers distribute blankets and food to shelters across the city each winter.
  • iiThe bridge's cables distribute the load, so no single point has to amass the strain.
  • iiiSeeds that disperse on the wind end up distributed far beyond the parent tree.
03Collocations
  • distribute evenly
  • distribute aid
  • widely distributed
  • distribute among
  • unevenly distributed

Family distribution (noun) · distributor (noun) · distributed (adjective)

04Relations

=disperse, allocate, dispense, circulate, spread

≠collect, amass

06TOEFL & IELTS

The stress is the exam trap: dis-TRIB-ute, second syllable, is the standard in both American English and RP — the first-syllable 'DIS-tribute' is a spreading British variant; dis-TRIB-ute remains the safer model to imitate. The noun shifts again: dis-tri-BYOO-shun. In IELTS Task 1, maps and charts live on this word's participle: 'rainfall is unevenly distributed across the region', 'the population is evenly distributed'. Prepositions: distribute TO recipients, AMONG a group, ACROSS an area.

07Asked
Where is the stress in distribute?
On the second syllable: dis-TRIB-ute, /dɪˈstrɪbjuːt/ — the standard in both American English and traditional RP. A first-syllable version, DIS-tribute, has been spreading in Britain for decades — pronunciation surveys for the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary were already finding a substantial British minority for it by the late 1980s — but dis-TRIB-ute remains the safer model to imitate. The noun moves the stress again: dis-tri-BYOO-shun.
What is the difference between distribute and allocate?
One sentence settles most cases: a budget is allocated in the meeting, when the shares are decided on paper, and distributed when the cheques actually go out. Deciding who gets what is one act; delivering it across the recipients is the other.
What does 'evenly distributed' mean?
Spread so that every part of the whole holds about the same amount — no clustering, no bare patches. It is what the paper round in the scene above achieves: by the end of the street every porch holds exactly one newspaper — no house doubled, none missed. The phrase is a Task 1 staple for maps and charts ('health facilities are evenly distributed across the region'), with 'unevenly distributed' as its equally useful shadow.
What does 'normally distributed' mean in statistics?
That a variable's values spread symmetrically around their average in the bell-curve shape — most observations near the middle, few far out. A distribution, in the statistical sense, is just the pattern of how values are spread; 'normal' names one famous pattern, to which heights and measurement errors roughly conform. For the word itself, the takeaway is that distribute covers not only handing out but how things lie once spread.
Do you distribute something 'to', 'among', or 'across'?
All three, with different completions. To takes the recipients: leaflets were distributed to every household. Among (or between) takes the group sharing: profits distributed among the partners. Across (or over, throughout) takes the area covered: clinics distributed across the country. Choosing the right one is mostly about whether you are picturing people, a group, or a territory.
What is a distribution?
Both the act of handing out — 'the distribution of aid' — and the resulting spread: 'an uneven distribution of wealth'. The stress moves as the word grows: dis-TRIB-ute, but dis-tri-BYOO-shun. A distributor is the company or device that delivers, and the participle has a technical career of its own — distributed systems spread computing work across many machines instead of concentrating it in one.