Synonyms

evaporate

American

[ih-vap-uh-rayt] / ɪˈvæp əˌreɪt /

verb (used without object)

to change from a liquid or solid state into vapor; pass off in vapor.

Synonyms:

vaporize
to give off moisture.
to disappear; vanish; fade.

His hopes evaporated.

Synonyms:

evanesce

verb (used with object)

to convert into a gaseous state or vapor; drive off or extract in the form of vapor.

The warm sun evaporated the dew.
to extract moisture or liquid from, as by heat, so as to make dry or to reduce to a denser state.

to evaporate fruit.
to cause to disappear or fade; dissipate.

His involvement in the scandal evaporated any hope he had for a political career.

evaporate British

/ ɪˈvæpəˌreɪt /

verb

to change or cause to change from a liquid or solid state to a vapour Compare boil 1
to lose or cause to lose liquid by vaporization, leaving a more concentrated residue
to disappear or cause to disappear; fade away or cause to fade away

all her doubts evaporated
(tr) to deposit (a film, metal, etc) by vaporization of a liquid or solid and the subsequent condensation of its vapour

"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

Usage

What does evaporate mean? Evaporate means to change from a liquid or solid state into vapor (like fog, mist, or steam). It can be used in a passive way, as in The water evaporated overnight, or an active way, as in The sun evaporates the water on the surface. The process of evaporating is called evaporation. Both terms are typically used in the context of water turning into water vapor. Water evaporates when it changes into steam through boiling, but in scientific terms, evaporation typically refers to the change of a liquid into a vapor at a temperature below the boiling point, such as when water evaporates from the surface of the ocean. In this way, evaporation is an important part of the water cycle. Evaporate can also be used in a figurative way meaning to disappear, as in The family’s wealth has evaporated, and now they have nothing. Example: The dew on the grass evaporates more quickly in the sunny parts of the yard.

Synonym Usage

Evaporate, dehydrate, dry mean to abstract moisture from. To evaporate is to remove moisture by means of heat, forced ventilation, or the like, and thus to produce condensation or shriveling: to evaporate milk, sliced apples. To dehydrate is to remove moisture from a vegetable, fruit, or body tissue: to dehydrate fruit; dehydrated from running. To dry may mean to wipe moisture off the surface or to withdraw moisture by natural means, such as exposure to air or heat: to dry a dish, clothes.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of evaporate

First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English evaporaten, from Latin ēvapōrātus (past participle of ēvapōrāre “to disperse in vapor”); see e- ¹, vapor, -ate ¹

Explanation

To evaporate is to fade away or to literally turn into vapor. If you leave a glass of water out and the water slowly disappears, it's not being consumed by elves; it's evaporating. People often use the word evaporate metaphorically because it produces a strong image of something disappearing like vapor. When the economy goes through a rough patch, funding for projects like education and the arts tends to evaporate or disappear. Your feelings for a mate might evaporate after you spend too much time with him or her.

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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.

See Examples For:

evaporate evaporates evaporated evaporating

A third Toyota driver, Sami Pajari, finished a further one point behind in third - having seen his own title challenge evaporate on the final weekend.

From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026

Any quantum black holes produced under the proposed models would evaporate essentially immediately.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026

Some millennials, in particular those who watched housing wealth evaporate during the Great Recession, may also see homeownership as “a liability,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate at the Harvard housing studies center.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026

Billions of dollars of annual sales can evaporate, sometimes within a year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

There’s a rush in my body as some of the angry bubbles in my stomach evaporate, and my shoulders relax.

From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan

Dry heat browns, evaporates and concentrates while you go do something else.

From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026

There is no especially good reason for this, and it pretty much evaporates for the remainder of the eight-episode series.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026

As sweat evaporates from the skin, it carries heat away.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026

It then rains, but the rain evaporates before it reaches the ground.

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

During the dry season the water evaporates and the Beni becomes a hot, arid savanna, kept open by annual burning.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

The skepticism I had heard at the beginning of the afternoon had evaporated.

From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2026

Had she secured a second Olympic gold, the motivation to dive into the pro ranks might have evaporated.

From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026

U.S. stocks fell Thursday as the brief calm in the bond market evaporated.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

Their findings suggest that the material came from a region near the surface of its parent asteroid, where liquid water evaporated and left behind increasingly concentrated salts.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

If Redmond had any doubts that Ames had gone over to the KGB, they now evaporated.

From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau

"We can apply these generalized laws to better understand evaporating black holes in quantum theory and black hole mergers, like those detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration using gravitational waves."

From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026

It was a sign that the "spirit of Anchorage" has, if not disappeared, then at least started evaporating.

From BBC ● Jun. 2, 2026

The nightmare scenario is playing out in Los Angeles, where a century-old entertainment economy is evaporating with no signs of a turnaround on the horizon.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026

“The argument for having lower rates is just evaporating right before our very eyes,” said Brian Bethune, an economist at Boston College, in an interview.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 28, 2026

Soon, on account of the heat, I guess, that water started evaporating and drops ran down the grooves carved in that wooden face so that the statue looked as if it were crying.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

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