Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- transitive v. To pour out and cause to spread freely.
- transitive v. To spread about or scatter; disseminate.
- transitive v. To make less brilliant; soften.
- intransitive v. To become widely dispersed; spread out.
- intransitive v. Physics To undergo diffusion.
- adj. Widely spread or scattered; not concentrated.
- adj. Characterized by verbosity; wordy. See Synonyms at wordy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Everywhere or throughout everything; not focused or concentrated.
- v. To spread over or through as in air, water, or other matter, especially by fluid motion or passive means.
- v. To be spread over or through as in air, water, or other matter, especially by fluid motion or passive means.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Poured out; widely spread; not restrained; copious; full; esp., of style, opposed to
concise orterse ; verbose; prolix - intransitive v. To pass by spreading every way, to diffuse itself.
- transitive v. To pour out and cause to spread, as a fluid; to cause to flow on all sides; to send out, or extend, in all directions; to spread; to circulate; to disseminate; to scatter; as to diffuse information.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To pour out and spread, as a fluid; cause to flow and spread.
- To spread abroad; scatter; send out or extend in all directions.
- Synonyms To scatter, disseminate, circulate, disperse, distribute, propagate.
- To spread, as a fluid, by the wandering of its molecules in amongst those of a contiguous fluid.
- Widely spread or diffused; extended; dispersed; scattered.
- Specifically
- In pathology, spreading widely and having no distinctively defined limits: as, a diffuse inflammation or suppuration: opposed to circumscribed.
- In boto, spreading widely and loosely.
- In embryology, applied to a form of non-deciduate placenta in which the fetal villi form a broad belt.
- In zoology, sparse; few and scattered, as markings; especially, in entomology, said of punctures, etc., when they are less thickly set than on a neighboring part from which they appear to be scattered off.
- Prolix; using many words; verbose; rambling: said of speakers and writers or their style.
- Hard to understand; perplexing; requiring extended effort.
- Synonyms Loose, rambling, wordy, long-winded, diluted, spun out.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. move outward
- adj. lacking conciseness
- adj. (of light) transmitted from a broad light source or reflected
- v. spread or diffuse through
- v. cause to become widely known
- adj. spread out; not concentrated in one place
Etymologies
Examples
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This crisis has arisen, the Prof says, because intensive cultivation has given rise to an upward trend in "diffuse" pollution from nitrates and phosphates which is proving difficult to reverse.
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The object is felt to say something succinctly and forcibly that the inner vision reports vaguely, in diffuse feeling rather than organically.
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DESCRIPTION: Also called St. Anthony's Fire, erysipelas is characterized by diffuse inflammation of the skin, or of the subcutaneous cellular tissue, usually with accompanying fever.
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And in 1995, with Mike Jura at UCLA, we published a paper suggesting that if it was in space, it should be responsible for some very puzzling features that have been known for 90 years called the diffuse interstellar bands.
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How about the definition for the word diffuse, courtesy of Dictionary. com?
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There are theories that Marie may have had a medical condition termed diffuse alopecia areata, which can result in sudden hair loss.
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We can see similar processes taking place today in so-called diffuse nebulae in this and other galaxies - such as the nebula M16, shown above left.
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So it's very common, and the manifestations are very diffuse, which is one of the main reasons why it is so underdiagnosed in this country.
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Gross was able to collect but 18 examples; but closely allied to this condition is what is known as diffuse hypertrophy of the breast.
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But if the book were being published this month, instead of last month, the term would be '99 percenters,' referring to the diffuse, leaderless resistance movement's statement: 'The one thing we all have in common is that we are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.'
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