Dissolution

How to spell dissolution

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce dissolution

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dissolution mean?

1. nounThe formal ending or breaking up of an organisation, partnership, marriage, or legislative body.
2. nounThe process by which a solid mixes into a liquid and disperses to form a solution.

Dissolution in a sentence

• The dissolution of the partnership left both founders free to start new ventures.

• The technician measured the rate of dissolution for each tablet in warm water.

• Parliament was recalled shortly before its planned dissolution.

• Complete dissolution of the powder took several minutes of stirring.

Where does dissolution come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin dissolutio, a noun meaning 'a breaking up' or 'a loosening apart'. It was built from the verb dissolvere, which joined dis- ('apart') to solvere ('to loosen, release, untie'), so the literal idea is of something being unbound into its separate parts. English took the word in the late 1300s, mostly through French, first using it for the physical melting or dispersing of one thing into another and for the dissolving of bonds. From there the sense widened to the formal ending of bodies that are held together by agreement, such as a marriage, a partnership, or a parliament. The same solvere root surfaces in 'solve', 'solvent', and 'absolve', and the doubled s at the start, kept from the Latin dis- before solv-, is the spelling detail writers most often get wrong.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, asunder)
• solut (from Latin solvere: to loosen, release)
• -ion (noun of action)