Literary notes about dissipate (AI summary)
The term "dissipate" is wielded in literature with remarkable versatility, taking on both literal and metaphorical hues. It can evoke a tangible scattering—as in the dispersal of fragile slumber or the vanishing of fog-like mists [1][2]—while also capturing the gradual fading of emotional or intellectual burdens, such as gloom, melancholy, or apprehension [3][4][5]. In other contexts, authors employ "dissipate" to illustrate the wasteful consumption of resources or time, showing characters squandering wealth or energy in ways that mirror internal disintegration [6][7]. This dynamic use enriches narrative landscapes by bridging the physical with the psychological, imbuing the word with a timeless, evocative power in the hands of writers.
- Hitherto you have lain perfectly still, because the slightest motion would dissipate the fragments of your slumber.
— from Twice-told tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne - You could as well dissipate a fog by flinging hand-grenades into it.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal - But it is this gloom which appears to have taken so strong a hold of your mind, that I wish to dissipate.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - There was a vague uneasiness associated with the word "unsteady" which she hoped Rosamond might say something to dissipate.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - As for us, Karnis did not dissipate his money in riotous living.
— from Serapis — Volume 03 by Georg Ebers - Throughout one entire year Noureddin did nothing but amuse himself, and dissipate the wealth his father had taken such pains to acquire.
— from The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang
