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.

The grammar schools were diffusing a new knowledge and mental energy through the middle classes and among the country gentry.

From History of the English People, Volume IV by Green, John Richard

We had not yet learned to esteem ourselves at a time when six editions of Camden’s “Britannia,” in the original Latin, were diffusing the greatness of England throughout Europe.

From Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Disraeli, Isaac

Behind him were some bundles of celery and bunches of parsley were diffusing pungent odours which painfully affected him.

From The Fat and the Thin by Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred

But his work—and this is the important point for us—helped to diffuse the idea, which the ideologists were diffusing on very different lines—that human history has been a progressive development.

From The Idea of Progress An inguiry into its origin and growth by Bury, J. B. (John Bagnell)

The belief that they were diffusing the free institutions in which they took so much pride certainly formed an element in the colonial activities of the English.

From The Expansion of Europe The Culmination of Modern History by Muir, Ramsay