dissolve

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dissolven,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin dissolvō (“to loosen up, break apart”),^{[3][5][6][4][7][8]} formed from dis- (“apart”) and solvō (“to loosen, untie, release”),^{[3][6][4][7][8]} the source of solve.^[6][7][9] Etymonline derives solvō from Proto-Indo-European *se-lu-, from the reflexive pronoun *s(w)e- and the root *leu- (“to loosen, divide, cut apart”);^[3] the American Heritage Dictionary also refers it to *leu-.^[4] The same Latin verb gave absolve and resolve.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To cause to die, or to make vanish or bring to nothing: about 1374, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[6] Barnhart dates the word to about 1380;^[5] Etymonline gives the late 14th century, for breaking a substance into its parts and for liquefying it.^[3] The Middle English Dictionary's first sense is to break up or melt a solid.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Wycliffite Bible (about 1384) dissolve meant both to take a thing apart into its elements and to melt it with heat; both senses are now rare.^[6][10] The modern chemical sense, to make a solid pass into a liquid so that it can no longer be told apart from it, is recorded from before 1475.^[6] Medieval surgeons used it for dispersing humours and reducing swellings (about 1400 to 1657),^[6] and for weakening the body (about 1400 to 1563).^[6] The sense of releasing from life, to die, lasted from Chaucer to 1736.^[6] Breaking up an assembly is dated by the OED to before 1513^[6] and by Etymonline to the early 15th century.^[3] Since 1868 dissolve alone can mean to dissolve parliament.^[6] From 1509 the word was used of feelings melting, as into tears.^[6] Johnson (1755) gave first the sense of destroying a thing's form by separating its parts with heat or moisture.^[11] In film, dissolve meant from 1912 to make one picture fade into another,^[6] and the noun dissolve, for such a transition, is recorded from 1916.^[12][10]

Timeline

• c. 1374 – to cause to die; to make vanish or destroy.^[6]
• c. 1384 – to take apart into its elements; to melt by heat.^[6]
• c. 1400 – in medicine, to disperse humours or reduce swellings (obsolete by 1657).^[6]
• before 1475 – to liquefy in a liquid.^[6]
• 1509 – of feelings, to melt.^[6]
• before 1513 – to break up an assembly.^[6]
• 1868 – to dissolve parliament.^[6]
• 1912 – in film, to fade one shot into another.^[6]
• 1916 – noun, a dissolve in film.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pass, or make something pass, into solution in a liquid: Stir until the sugar dissolves.^[13][12][6]
2. To become or make liquid; to melt.^[13][6]
3. To break up or disperse; to fade away or disappear.^[13][12]
4. To bring a meeting, an assembly or a parliament to an end; to dismiss it.^[13][6]
5. To end something legally, such as a marriage or a partnership.^[13][12]
6. To lose control of one's feelings: She dissolved into laughter.^[13][6]
7. In film and television, to fade one shot gradually into another.^[13][6]
8. (archaic) To loosen, unfasten or release.^[6][10]

Noun

1. In film and television, a transition in which one shot fades out as the next fades in.^[12][10]

Word family

• dissolvable
• dissolver
• dissolvent
• dissolvability
• dissolvingly
• dissoluble
• dissolution

Related words

• solve
• absolve
• resolve
• dissolute
• solution
• solvent

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins