Other forms: diluted, diluting, dilutes
To dilute is to weaken a liquid by adding water. Dilute the squash, dilute it by half, a dilute solution.
The figurative sense is everywhere in business: to dilute a shareholding is to reduce each share's slice by issuing more, which is a real and costly thing rather than a metaphor. Dilute is also the adjective.
1verbdiluteTo weaken a liquid by adding water.
“Dilute the orange juice with water before you give it to the baby.”
dilute is a weakening.
Latin diluere means to wash away, from dis-, apart, plus luere, to wash.
Proto-Indo-European
*lewh₃-
Latin
dīlūtus
English, today
dilute
Built from
From Latin dīlūtus, from dīluere (“to wash away, dissolve, cause to melt, dilute”), from dī-, dis- (“away, apart”) + luere (“to wash”). See lave, and compare deluge.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA