disseminate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
disseminates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
disseminated,
past participle, past
-
disseminating
present participle
verb
Usage
What does disseminate mean? To disseminate is to distribute, spread, broadcast, or disperse widely. The act or process of disseminating is dissemination. The word is especially used in reference to the distribution of information, or things that contain information, like files and documents. It is also associated with the official release of such information by organizations, such as a company that disseminates a press release or a government agency that disseminates information to the public. Example: Our chief media officer is responsible for disseminating press releases to various outlets.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
disseminatesimple
-
disseminatessimple
-
have disseminatedperfect
-
has disseminatedperfect
-
am disseminatingprogressive
-
are disseminatingprogressive
-
is disseminatingprogressive
-
have been disseminatingperfect progressive
-
has been disseminatingperfect progressive
Past
-
disseminatedsimple
-
had disseminatedperfect
-
was disseminatingprogressive
-
were disseminatingprogressive
-
had been disseminatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of disseminate
First recorded in 1595–1605; from Latin dissēminātus (past participle of dissēmināre; dis- dis- 1 + sēmināre “to sow”), equivalent to dis- + sēmin- (stem of sēmen “seed”) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
Disseminate means to spread information, knowledge, opinions widely. Semin- derives from the Latin word for seed; the idea with disseminate is that information travels like seeds sown by a farmer. Think about a teacher distributing a hand out at the beginning of a class. The dis- of disseminate and distribute come from the same Latin prefix which means "apart, in a different direction." But unlike papers distributed in class, information, once spread around in all directions, cannot be pulled back in. Think about false rumors or political smear campaigns and you'll understand that dissemination is usually a one-way process.
Vocabulary lists containing disseminate
Hidden Figures
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Grade 11, List 5
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
1984
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
"We urge the public not to disseminate related information, to reject cyberbullying, and to work together to create a good environment for the growth of minors," reads an official statement.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
Neither Party shall disclose, reproduce, disseminate, use, or permit any third party to disclose, reproduce, disseminate, or use any Confidential Information without the prior written consent of the Confiding Party.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
In their open letter, the memorials called on social media platforms to "proactively combat AI content that distorts history" and to "exclude accounts that disseminate such content from all monetisation programmes".
From Barron's ● Jan. 27, 2026
“Neither party shall post, upload or disseminate on the internet or any social media platforms, photographs, images, and or/information regarding the Minor Child,” court documents say.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2025
Although the Americans leave Manila in the hands of the Japanese—temporarily, at least—and the Propaganda Corps works tirelessly to disseminate their messages, the Imperial Japanese Army struggles in the first months of the occupation.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
The letter said that project was aimed at assessing how the Secret Service identifies, receives, disseminates and operationalizes intelligence concerning threats to the officials it protects.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2026
“If a city in a country wants to promote its tourism, its culture, that’s a very different thing from a paid advertisement that disseminates discriminatory messages,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2025
"As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences."
From Salon ● Feb. 14, 2025
The brain puppeteers the hormone system, which disseminates chemical signals through the bloodstream, and those chemicals can spark a wide variety of biological responses.
From Slate ● Jun. 26, 2023
A burst of mellow lunar radiance Inundates and illuminates the scene; The waxing moon, in her meridian full, Her beam vicarious disseminates, And shining, hides with her superior light, The twinkling beauty of the firmament!
From Mountain idylls, and Other Poems by Alfred Castner King
“No evidence was discovered showing the photograph was disseminated outside official channels or used for any personal or non-official purpose.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
She continued: "The more we are investigating this outbreak, the more we realise that it has already disseminated at least a little bit across border and also in other provinces."
From BBC ● May 19, 2026
The church denies that the aim of the lawsuit is to silence a popular maverick whose content is widely disseminated by critics of Mormonism.
From Salon ● Apr. 29, 2026
U.S. government accounts have disseminated black-and-white videos of the strikes set to action-movie soundtracks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 7, 2026
From the end of the seventeenth century, through sermons and lectures, through popular textbooks and dramatic dialogues, the new science was disseminated to a wider audience than ever before.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
An Egyptian court denied on Thursday the appeal of a prominent economist seeking to overturn his five-year prison sentence for disseminating "fake news", according to one of his lawyers.
From Barron's ● Dec. 25, 2025
We need automated real-time systems capable of disseminating alerts across sectors in hours, not weeks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 23, 2025
Our job is to determine whether someone was engaged in journalism and whether their work involved gathering and disseminating news and information.
From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2025
On Thursday, the Washington Post published an article about the White House’s “rapid-response influencer operation, disseminating messages directly to Americans through the memes, TikToks and podcasts where millions now get their news.”
From Salon ● Mar. 8, 2025
Thus the category ‘discovery’ proved to be capable of disseminating across the various local cultures of Renaissance Europe, but it did not fare well elsewhere.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
