dissipate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To drive away; disperse.
2. v. To attenuate to or almost to the point of disappearing: The wind finally dissipated the smoke. See Synonyms at scatter.
3. v. To spend or expend intemperately or wastefully; squander.
4. v. To use up, especially recklessly; exhaust: dissipated their energy. See Synonyms at waste.
5. v. To cause to lose (energy, such as heat) irreversibly.
6. v. To vanish by dispersion: The dark clouds finally dissipated.
7. v. To indulge in the intemperate pursuit of pleasure.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To cause to pass or melt away; scatter or drive off in all directions; dispel: as, wind dissipates fog; the heat of the sun dissipates vapor; mirth dissipates care.
2. To expend wastefully; scatter extravagantly or improvidently; waste, as property by foolish outlay, or the powers of the mind by devotion to trivial pursuits.
3. Synonyms Dissipate, Dispel, Disperse, Scatter. These words are often interchangeable. Dissipate and dispel, however, properly apply to the dispersion of things that vanish and are not afterward collected; dissipate is the more energetic, and dispel is more often used figuratively: as, to dissipate vapor; to dissipate a fortune; to dispel doubt; to dispel uncertainty. Disperse and scatter are applied to things which may be again brought together: as, to scatter or disperse troops; or to things which are quite as real and tangible after scattering or dispersing as before: as, to gather up one's scattered wits.
4. To become scattered, dispersed, or diffused; come to an end or vanish through dispersion or diffusion.
5. To engage in extravagant, excessive, or dissolute pleasures; be loose in conduct.

Wiktionary

1. v. To drive away, disperse.
2. v. To use up or waste.
3. v. To vanish by dispersion.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To scatter completely; to disperse and cause to disappear; -- used esp. of the dispersion of things that can never again be collected or restored.
2. v. To destroy by wasteful extravagance or lavish use; to squander.
3. v. To separate into parts and disappear; to waste away; to scatter; to disperse; to vanish
4. v. To be extravagant, wasteful, or dissolute in the pursuit of pleasure; to engage in dissipation.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. live a life of pleasure, especially with respect to alcoholic consumption
2. v. spend frivolously and unwisely
3. v. move away from each other
4. v. to cause to separate and go in different directions