Other forms: distributed, distributing, distributes
To distribute is to hand shares out to many people or places. Distribute the leaflets, distribute aid, evenly distributed.
It implies spreading across a set rather than giving to one: distributing food aid, distributing weight, distributing profits. In business, a distributor is the company that gets goods from maker to seller, and distribution is often where the real money sits. In statistics, a distribution describes how values are spread. Note redistribute, which is politically loaded in a way distribute is not.
1verbdistributeTo hand shares out to many people or places.
“Volunteers distributed leaflets to every house in the village.”
2verbspreadTo spread evenly across something.
“Stand with your feet apart to distribute your weight evenly.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
distribute is an act of sharing out.
Latin distribuere is dis-, apart, plus tribuere, to allot — from tribus, a tribe, since allotments were made by tribe. Tribute and contribute come from the same allotting.
Proto-Indo-European
*tréyes
Latin
distributus
English, today
distribute
Built from
From Latin distributus, past participle of distribuere (“to divide, distribute”), from dis- (“apart”) + tribuere (“to give, impart”); see tribute.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA