Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1300-1400
Language: French
Origin: disperser, from Latin dispergere 'to scatter'

disperse

 verb
     
di‧sperse [intransitive and transitive]
1 if a group of people disperse or are dispersed, they go away in different directions:
Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
2 if something disperses or is dispersed, it spreads in different directions over a wide area:
The clouds dispersed as quickly as they had gathered.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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