Etymologically
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dissolve

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /dɪˈzɒlv/[1]
  • US: /dɪˈzɑlv/, /dɪˈzɔlv/[1]

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

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