Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The opposite of assimilation; specifically, the same as
retrograde metamorphosis (which see, undermetamorphosis ) or catabolism.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Physics) The decomposition of complex substances, within the organism, into simpler ones suitable only for excretion, with evolution of energy, -- a normal nutritional process the reverse of assimilation; downward metabolism; -- now more commonly called
catabolism .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
decomposition ofcomplex substances , within anorganism , into simpler ones suitable only forexcretion , with the release ofenergy ; a normalnutritional process that is thereverse ofassimilation .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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By contrast, look at what the combination of economic stagnation and demographic disassimilation has done for the French: six days of rioting in not-so-gay suburban Paris.
Think Progress » What Part of “Obstruction of Justice” Don’t You Understand? 2005
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For the obese from default of disassimilation, Robin recommends a regimen of green vegetables and bread chiefly -- the latter in small quantities, however, and fluids as may be desired.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, September 26, 1891 Various
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The excessive exercise of the whole body is setting free from the tissues such an amount of excretive matter, and carbon more largely than all the others, that, without a relative action of the lungs to admit the air that oxygen may be absorbed, carbonic acid gas cannot be liberated through the lungs as fast as the waste carbon of the overworked tissues is being made by disassimilation from this excess of respiration.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 275, April 9, 1881 Various
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In poisoning by lead and copper the accumulation of the poison in the fetal tissues is greater than in the maternal, perhaps from differences in assimilation and disassimilation or from greater diffusion.
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In poisoning by lead and copper the accumulation of the poison in the fetal tissues is greater than in the maternal, perhaps from differences in assimilation and disassimilation or from greater diffusion.
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Association in 1912, argued that all the main characteristics of living matter, such as assimilation and disassimilation, growth and reproduction, spontaneous and amoeboid movement, osmotic pressure, karyokinesis, etc., were equally apparent in the non-living; therefore he concluded that life is only one of the many chemical reactions, and that it is not improbable that it will yet be produced by chemical synthesis in the laboratory.
The Breath of Life John Burroughs 1879
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Uric and hippuric acids are found in the urine of carnivora and herbivora, respectively, as the result of the healthy wear (disassimilation) of nitrogenous tissues.
Special Report on Diseases of the Horse Charles B. Michener 1877
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(That partially explains the second - and third-generation disassimilation Derb references.)
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"That the presence of alcohol in the living system positively lessens the reception and internal distribution of oxygen, and consequently retards the oxidation processes of disassimilation by which the various products for excretion are perfected and their elimination facilitated, is so fully demonstrated, both by observation and experiment, as no longer to admit of doubt.
Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why What Medical Writers Say Martha Meir Allen 1890
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