Dispel definition

dĭ-spĕl
dispelled dispelling dispels
See word origin
Frequency:
To break up, drive away, or cause to disappear.

The breeze dispelled the bad odor. Her cheerfulness dispelled the gloom. The report dispelled my doubts.

verb
7
2
To scatter and drive away; cause to vanish; disperse.
verb
2
2
To dispel is defined as to drive away or make disappear.

An example of to dispel is to prove a rumor to be false.

verb
0
0
To drive away by scattering, or to cause to vanish; to clear away; to banish; to dissipate.
verb
0
0
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Alternative Forms

Alternative Form of dispel - dispell

Origin of dispel

  • Middle English dispellen from Latin dispellere dis- apart dis– pellere to drive pel-5 in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Dispel Sentence Examples

  • A realization he'd never touch them again didn't dispel the feeling I was prying into his world.

  • But the brief exercise failed to dispel the glumness for more than a few moments.

  • The only way we are going to dispel ignorance is through education.

  • Hoping to dispel some of the confusion, especially in the business world, Chinese-Americans often take on a more American first name, introducing themselves by their adopted first name and Chinese surname instead.

  • Historians have found it hard to dispel the idea that civilization in Greece was a very late development, and that the culture of the age of Solon sprang, in fact, suddenly into existence, as it seems to do in the records of the historian.

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