dispersive

American

[dih-spur-siv] / dɪˈspɜr sɪv /

adjective

serving or tending to disperse.

dispersive British

/ dɪˈspɜːsɪv /

adjective

tending or serving to disperse

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

dispersively adverb
dispersiveness noun
nondispersive adjective

Etymology

Origin of dispersive

First recorded in 1620–30; disperse + -ive

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.

This dramatic disparity between electron and hole-carrier transport is attributed to spatially separated electronic states near the Fermi level, which consists of dispersive and flat bands.

From Science Daily • Apr. 19, 2024

Some of the samples were analyzed using a FEI Scios dual-beam focused ion beam/scanning electronic microscope equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometer.

From Salon • Feb. 8, 2024

In the dispersive model, both copies of DNA have double-stranded segments of parental DNA and newly synthesized DNA interspersed.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

In the early 1990s, Bourgain launched the modern era for dispersive, nonlinear partial differential equations.

From Nature • Feb. 5, 2019

Now, this sort of spectrum is greatly weakened by every increase of dispersive power, because the light is spread out into a longer ribbon and made to cover a more extended area.

From Astronomy: The Science of the Heavenly Bodies by Todd, David Peck

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023