disseminate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dissēminātus, the past participle of dissēminō (“to spread abroad”),^[2][3][4][5] from dis- (“in every direction”) and sēminō (“to sow, plant, propagate”),^[2][3][6] from sēmen (“seed”),^[2][6][7] from Proto-Indo-European *sē- (“to sow”).^[2][6] The OED compares French disséminer, which it records from the 14th century.^[5] Barnhart thinks the early adjective was probably influenced by Middle English dissemen (“to scatter”), recorded from about 1410.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a verb, to scatter abroad, as in sowing seed: 1603, in Philemon Holland's translation of Plutarch's Moralia.^[5][3] Merriam-Webster's first known use is 1566,^[4] and Dictionary.com gives 1595–1605.^[8] An adjective disseminate, scattered widely, appears probably before 1425 in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon,^[3] and the Shorter Oxford notes isolated use before the 17th century.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The word began with the image of sowing, which Johnson (1755) still put first: "To scatter as seed; to sow; to spread every way".^[10] The figurative sense of spreading opinions, statements or knowledge followed in 1643, in Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici,^[5][2] and Etymonline notes that it referred to some intended result.^[2] From 1682 the past participle could simply describe things found dispersed through something, without any action implied.^[5] A brief use for causing something to ramify is recorded only in 1664–68.^[5] In medicine disseminated means spread throughout an organ or the body, as in disseminated sclerosis, multiple sclerosis.^[9] The intransitive use, recorded from 1803, is rare.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1425 – adjective, scattered widely.^[3]
• 1603 – to scatter abroad, as in sowing seed.^[5][3]
• 1643 – figurative, to spread opinions or knowledge.^[5]
• 1682 – past participle, of things found dispersed.^[5]
• 1803 – intransitive, to spread (rare).^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spread information, ideas or the like widely: The agency disseminated flood warnings by radio.^[4][11][5]
2. To scatter or disperse things, as if sowing seed.^[11][5][9]
3. Of a thing, to spread itself (rare).^[5]

Word family

• dissemination
• disseminator
• disseminative

Related words

• inseminate
• semen
• seed
• sow

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins