Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To make thinner or less concentrated by adding a liquid such as water.
- transitive verb To lessen the force, strength, purity, or brilliance of, especially by admixture.
- transitive verb To decrease the value of (shares of stock) by increasing the total number of shares.
- adjective Weakened; diluted.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Thin; attenuated; reduced in strength, as spirit or color.
- Weak; paltry; poor.
- To render more liquid; make thin or more fluid, as by mixture of a fluid of less with one of greater consistence; attenuate the strength or consistence of: often used figuratively: as, to
dilute a narrative with weak reflections. - Hence To weaken, as spirit or an acid, by an admixture of water or other liquid, which renders the spirit or acid less concentrated.
- To make weak or weaker, as color, by mixture; reduce the strength or standard of.
- To become liquid or more liquid; become thin or reduced in strength: as, vinegar dilutes easily.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Diluted; thin; weak.
- transitive verb To make thinner or more liquid by admixture with something; to thin and dissolve by mixing.
- transitive verb To diminish the strength, flavor, color, etc., of, by mixing; to reduce, especially by the addition of water; to temper; to attenuate; to weaken.
- intransitive verb To become attenuated, thin, or weak.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To make thinner by adding
solvent to asolution ; especially by addingwater . - verb transitive To
weaken , especially by adding a foreign substance. - verb transitive, stock market To cause the value of individual shares to decrease by increasing the total number of shares.
- adjective Having a low
concentration . - adjective
Weak ; reduced in strength due to dilution,diluted .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective reduced in strength or concentration or quality or purity
- verb lessen the strength or flavor of a solution or mixture
- verb corrupt, debase, or make impure by adding a foreign or inferior substance; often by replacing valuable ingredients with inferior ones
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The experimental search for BEC in dilute gases started early with the use of spin-polarised hydrogen in
The 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics - Information for the Public 2001
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Polymer molecules in dilute solutions form loops, or
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"osmotic pressure" in solutions which are sufficiently dilute is proportionate to the concentration and the absolute temperature so that this pressure can be represented by a formula which only deviates from the formula for gas pressure by a coefficient
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This relatively greater need for nutriment being admitted, as it must be, the question that remains is -- shall we meet it by giving an excessive quantity of what may be called dilute food, or a more moderate quantity of concentrated food?
Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects Everyman's Library Herbert Spencer 1861
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So Wang and his colleagues made dome-shaped structures of 95 percent germanium with 5 percent manganese, a material known as a dilute magnetic semiconductor.
IEEE Spectrum 2010
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When hydrogen chloride liqueifiedi n water, the result is called dilute hydrochloric acid, and they usually liquified before it sell in the market.
CreationWiki - Recent changes [en] Sangkim 2009
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When hydrogen chloride liquifiedi n water, the result is called dilute hydrochloric acid, and they usually liquified before it sell in the market.
CreationWiki - Recent changes [en] Sangkim 2009
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New hires "dilute" the increases in productivity of existing staff, a situation which I believe caused productivity numbers from the mid-late 90s to be lower than what you might expect from the level of capital investment at the time.
Double-Counted Jobs?, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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It cannot be improved, and Straw can't be allowed to merely "dilute" it.
British Readers: Write to your MPs James 2009
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It cannot be improved, and Straw can't be allowed to merely "dilute" it.
Archive 2009-03-01 James 2009
MaryW commented on the word dilute
Applied to volcanic flows:
Alexandra Witze & Jeff Kanipe, Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World (New York: Island Books, 2015), ch. 8, p. 168February 18, 2019