disperseverb [ I or T ]
uk/dɪˈspɜːs/us/dɪˈspɝːs/to spread across or move away over a large area, or to make something do this:
When the rain came down the crowds started to disperse.
Police dispersed the crowd that had gathered.
More examples
- Outside the church, the congregation shook hands with the vicar and began to disperse.
- Debris from the aircraft was dispersed over a large area.
- Can you be responsible for dispersing these notices everywhere around town, please?
- The showers will be quite widely dispersed across the whole region.
- Once the seeds are released into the air, the wind quickly disperses them.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Spreading and scattering
- all over the place idiom
- bedaub
- bestrew
- billow
- circulate
- go round (somewhere)
- go/do the rounds idiom
- percolate
- radial
- radiate
- scatter
- slap
- spread
- spread out
- sprinkling
- straggle
- stretch
- strew
- suffuse
- sweep
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dispersal
noun [ U ] uk/dɪˈspɜː.səl/us/dɪˈspɝː.səl/