How to Use disperse in a Sentence

disperse

verb
  • Police ordered the crowd to disperse.
  • Danilecki grabbed the bat and told the group to disperse.
    Andrew Ryan, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Apr. 2023
  • Make sure to put this device in a place where the heat is able to disperse.
    Good Housekeeping, 28 Mar. 2023
  • The work at the stadium will begin when the game is over and the crowds disperse.
    Parija Kavilanz, CNN, 7 Feb. 2023
  • Their models showed that this spin would disperse the seeds in a wider arc.
    Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 27 Nov. 2024
  • Try to disperse the fall onto a larger part of the body, such as your side.
    Lois K. Solomon, Sun Sentinel, 16 Mar. 2023
  • Monks will hand out small bags of sand and will lead a procession to beach to disperse the sand in the ocean.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Dec. 2021
  • The exhaust fan above the stove won’t be enough to disperse the emissions, either.
    Hallie Milstein, Southern Living, 14 Feb. 2025
  • If that happens, use the small wand to disperse the tint or dab off a bit with your finger.
    Kiana Murden, Vogue, 12 Feb. 2025
  • Police refused and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.
    Laetitia Bezain, ajc, 29 Aug. 2022
  • Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd ahead of an 8 p.m. curfew.
    From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 25 July 2022
  • Police used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd but failed and more and more marched down the lane and towards the office.
    Landon Mion, Fox News, 13 July 2022
  • Others fired their machine guns in the air to disperse crowds.
    Marcus Yam, Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2021
  • The crowd dispersed when more police arrived with lights and sirens on.
    Ryan Murphy, The Indianapolis Star, 16 Sep. 2024
  • Those owls are then able to widely disperse, at times as far south as Texas.
    Morgan Greene, chicagotribune.com, 1 Feb. 2022
  • Both the Taliban and U.S. troops fired shots around the airport Wednesday to disperse crowds.
    Compiled Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, Arkansas Online, 19 Aug. 2021
  • The devices produce a loud noise, a flash and disperse a pepper powder in the air.
    Cameron Knight, The Enquirer, 10 Aug. 2022
  • The water vapor will disperse across your dog's body and keep them cool.
    Emily Belfiore, PEOPLE.com, 12 July 2021
  • The rest of the group also began to disperse from the table amid the growing tensions.
    Joelle Goldstein, PEOPLE.com, 19 Apr. 2022
  • For instance, a stiffer stem would disperse most seeds very near the parent plant.
    Carolyn Wilke, New York Times, 25 Nov. 2024
  • The crowd later dispersed and left Tamra and Jenn to have a heart-to-heart about their rocky friendship.
    Esther Kang, Peoplemag, 27 July 2023
  • Over the following days, the colony was dispersed to other shelters around the city.
    Nathan Solis, Los Angeles Times, 4 Mar. 2024
  • All seeds rely on some sort of vector to disperse seeds.
    Jeff Lowenfels, Anchorage Daily News, 31 Aug. 2023
  • When garbage collectors pull the bag out, the small poop bags can spill out and the contents disperse onto the street.
    Abigail Van Buren, oregonlive, 21 Dec. 2021
  • People must be warned that tear gas will be used and allowed to disperse.
    Agoes Basoeki and Niniek Karmini, Anchorage Daily News, 2 Oct. 2022
  • The spores are then dispersed to create new dog slime mold patches.
    Tim Johnson, Chicago Tribune, 3 Sep. 2023
  • There are 10 fireplaces dispersed across the mansion’s 43 rooms.
    Mark David, Robb Report, 8 Nov. 2023
  • The protests were marred by violent clashes with the police, who fired tear gas in Paris to disperse the crowd.
    New York Times, 26 Apr. 2022
  • To use, just shake the bottle to ensure all the beads are suspended and dispersed throughout the bottle.
    Kiana Murden, Vogue, 7 Mar. 2025
  • In the confusion, she was detained, then charged with failure to disperse and blocking the sidewalk.
    Andy Rose, CNN, 20 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'disperse.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: