Dispersal

How to spell dispersal

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce dispersal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dispersal mean?

1. nounThe action of scattering or spreading something, or people, over a wide area.

Dispersal in a sentence

• The police ordered the dispersal of the crowd after the match.

• Wind plays a major role in the dispersal of seeds across the field.

Where does dispersal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Dispersal traces back to the Latin verb dispergere, meaning 'to scatter widely', formed from dis- 'apart, in different directions' and spargere 'to scatter or sprinkle'. The same spargere root sits inside English words such as 'sparse' and 'aspersion', all carrying the idea of throwing things about. English took the verb 'disperse' from the Latin past participle dispersus during the late Middle Ages, and the noun 'dispersal' was built later, around the early nineteenth century, by simply adding the noun-forming suffix -al to the established verb. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle and final vowels: the 'er' sounds like a neutral schwa and the ending is -al rather than the -el some writers expect. Remembering the link to 'disperse' keeps the single 's' and the -al ending in place.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart)
• spers (from Latin spargere, to scatter)
• -al (noun-forming suffix)