dissipated
Americanadjective
adjective
-
indulging without restraint in the pursuit of pleasure; debauched
-
wasted, scattered, or exhausted
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dissipated
Explanation
If your Great Aunt Maude tells you you've become a dissipated bum, she means you don't think of anything but how much fun you're having. If you got a summer job and stopped playing arcade games all day, she might change her tune. The adjective dissipated is used to describe people who've lost their moral center, and instead of following the rules of conventional morals, prefer to be utterly self-indulgent. The word comes from the verb dissipate, which means "to disperse," but as an adjective it's always used for people who've gone wrong in some way. If you really want to lay into someone, use these synonyms and call him a "dissipated, dissolute, debauched, degenerate jerk."
Vocabulary lists containing dissipated
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Donald Trump Inauguration Address- January 20, 2017
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A Room of One's Own
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Incident traffic has dissipated substantially in the past years, it noted, with 45 incidents reported in 2024, 19 in 2025, and three since the beginning of 2026.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
Wildlife experts and conservationists had previously observed that, in the wake of the storm, Tapanuli orangutan sightings had dissipated - fuelling speculation that the great apes may have been swept away by floods and landslides.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
If there was any bad blood between Paxton and Middleton over these clashes, it seems to have dissipated in the years since.
From Salon ● May 23, 2026
For three weeks, McFarland and Brune followed short-lived storms that dissipated quickly, leaving them without useful data.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 21, 2026
Their fear having dissipated itself, the children were holding a competition of shrieking.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
