Other forms: dispersed, dispersing, disperses
To disperse is to scatter — to spread out in all directions from one place. A crowd disperses after the final whistle, seeds disperse on the wind, smoke disperses across a field.
It works both ways round: the crowd dispersed on its own, and the police dispersed the crowd. Science borrows it for particles spread through a liquid or a gas, and for light, where a prism disperses white sunlight into its colours. The nouns are dispersal (of seeds, of a crowd) and dispersion (of light, of a population). Do not swap it for dispel, which handles things you cannot touch: you dispel a myth, a doubt or a rumour, and you disperse a crowd.
1verbscatterTo spread out over a wide area and move off in different directions.
“The protesters dispersed quietly once the rain started.”
formal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
2verbdisbandTo make a group or a substance spread out and go in different directions.
“Officers dispersed the crowd shortly before midnight.”
formal in this meaning — an editor’s judgement
3verbdisperseTo spread particles or light evenly through something.
“A prism disperses sunlight into a band of colour on the wall.”
Latin dispergō meant to scatter abroad: dis-, apart, plus spargō, to scatter. Its past participle dispersus travelled through Middle French disperser into English. The same spargō sits behind sparse — a sparse crowd is one that has already been dispersed.
Latin
dispersus
Middle French
disperser
English, today
disperse
Built from
From Middle French disperser, from Latin dispersus, past participle of dispergō (“to scatter abroad, disperse”), from dis- (“apart”) + spargō (“to scatter”); see sparse.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA