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Billow vs Disperse - What's the difference?

billow | disperse |

As verbs the difference between billow and disperse

is that billow is to surge or roll in billows while disperse is .

As a noun billow

is a large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound.

billow

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A large wave, swell, surge, or undulating mass of something, such as water, smoke, fabric or sound
  • * Cowper
  • whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll
  • * 18?? , :
  • And the brooklet has found the billow / Though they flowed so far apart.
  • * 1922 , :
  • Have the swirling sands engulfed them, on a noon of storm when the desert rose like the sea, and rolled its tawny billows on the walled gardens of the green and fragrant lands?

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To surge or roll in billows
  • * 1920 , , The Understanding Heart , Chapter II:
  • During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in … Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains,
  • To swell out or bulge
  • References

    disperse

    English

    Verb

  • (intransitive) To scatter in different directions
  • The Jews are dispersed among all nations.
  • * Bible, Proverbs xv. 7
  • The lips of the wise disperse knowledge.
  • * Cowper
  • Two lions, in the still, dark night, / A herd of beeves disperse .
  • (intransitive) To break up and disappear; to dissipate
  • (intransitive) To disseminate
  • (physics, transitive, intransitive) To separate rays of light etc. according to wavelength; to refract
  • (intransitive) To distribute throughout
  • Usage notes

    * Do not confuse with the monetary word disburse, despite similarity.

    Anagrams

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