▪ I. diˈssociate, ppl. a. rare.
[ad. L. dissociāt-us, pa. pple. of dissociāre: see next.]
= dissociated.
| 1548 Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. John xiv. (R.) You..whom I wil not suffre to be dissociate or disseuered from me. 1815 Shelley Pr. Wks. (1888) II. 193 Neither the dream could be dissociate from the landscape, nor the landscape from the dream. 1895 Daily News 1 Feb. 7/5 Nitrogen existed partly in an ‘allotropic’ or in a ‘dissociate’ form. |
† b. Astrol. (see quot.).
| 1819 J. Wilson Dict. Astrol., Dissociate signs, those that by being 1 or 5 signs distant, have no aspect to each other: thus {aries} is dissociate with ♓, ♉, {virgo}, and {scorpio}. |
▪ II. dissociate, v.
(dɪˈsəʊʃɪeɪt)
[f. L. dissociāt- ppl. stem of dissociāre to separate from fellowship, f. dis- 1 + sociāre to join together, associate: cf. prec., and see -ate3 6.]
1. trans. To cut off from association or society; to sever, disunite, sunder. Const. from.
| 1623 Cockeram, Dissociate, to separate. 1628 Feltham Resolves ii. xxxvi, Grief..does dissociate man, and sends him with beasts to the lonelinesse of unpathed desarts. 1710 T. Fuller Pharm. Extemp. 296 These Earths mix in with it [the Bile] and dissociate it. 1768–74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) II. 313 Our very wants and desires, which first bring us together, have a tendency likewise to dissociate us. 1863 M. E. Braddon Eleanor's Vict. II. iv. 54 Eleanor Vane could not dissociate the two images. 1874 Green Short Hist. vi. §4. 303 It was the first time..that religion had formally dissociated itself from the ambition of princes and the horrors of war. 1888 Lowell Pr. Wks. (1890) VI. 201 Done only by men dissociated from the interests of party. |
b. Chem. To separate the elements of (a compound), spec. by heat: see dissociation 2.
| 1869 C. A. Joy in Scientific Opinion No. 58. 571/1 A part of the vapour of water is decomposed spontaneously or dissociated in the tube of porous clay. Ibid. 571/2 At the temperature of the fusion of silver, water is dissociated and no longer exists as water. 1880 E. Cleminshaw Wurtz' Atom. Th. 115 The vapour of calomel is dissociated at the high temperature at which its density is taken. |
2. intr. (for refl.) To withdraw from association, cease to associate.
| 1866 Maurice Workm. & Franchise 237 There is a tendency to dissociate, to separate, of which each man becomes very conscious, in whatever circle he finds himself. |
Hence diˈssociating ppl. adj.
| a 1691 Boyle Wks. I. 373 (R.) The dissociating action even of the gentlest fire, upon a concrete. |