Definition of DISSEMINATE

Disseminating Information on Disseminate

While the object of the verb disseminate may be something tangible, such as an infectious agent, nowadays the thing most often disseminated, or "spread abroad as though sowing seed," is information. Where does this metaphorical verb come from? In Latin, the dis- prefix signifies separation or dispersal, while the -sem- element springs from semen "seed." The same Latin noun is found in a number of other English words with figurative meanings: seminary (which now is a training facility for priests, but initially was a place where seeds were raised to plants), seminal (meaning "containing the seeds of later development"), and yes, the word semen.

Examples of disseminate in a Sentence

He told me that as Commanding General [General David Petraeus] he believes he should not only direct battlefield action but also disseminate a few easy-to-grasp concepts about the war's prosecution, which subordinate officers can then interpret on their own. — Steve Coll, New Yorker, 8 Sept. 2008 Jefferson helped found and back a friendly newspaper, the National Gazette, to help disseminate his views. — Walter Kim, Time, 5 July 2004 In this case, the filmmakers did not prevent information from being disseminated. And they have no greater moral obligation than do the highly paid Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather to help a TV network keep down its costs. — Randy Cohen, New York Times Magazine, 7 Oct. 2001 Although possession of virus software and source code is not illegal, many of the existing state and federal computer intrusion and unauthorized access laws already make it illegal to introduce a virus into someone's system intentionally. Robert Morris's conviction … shows how the existing laws might be used to punish those involved with disseminating viruses. — Edward A. Cavazos et al., Cyberspace And The Law, 1994 The Internet allows us to disseminate information faster. The findings were widely disseminated.

Recent Examples on the Web

The tech giants were already coming under pressure for issues including Russian campaign meddling, data breaches, efforts to draft a tough federal privacy law and to make tech companies responsible for the content disseminated by their services. — Bloomberg News, The Mercury News, "Big tech is armed and ready for the antitrust fight," 6 June 2019 The rise of smart technology and data-surveying gadgets means that tons of private information is being collected and disseminated in completely new ways. — Chavie Lieber, Vox, "Big tech has your kid’s data — and you probably gave it to them," 5 Dec. 2018 Why would a state record its barbarism, even if its rulers never imagined that the photographs would be disseminated? — Susie Linfield, The New York Review of Books, "Syria’s Torture Photos: Witness to Atrocity," 9 Feb. 2019 The head of the House Homeland Security Committee asked four technology companies to attend a closed-door briefing next week on their efforts to prevent violent videos from being disseminated in the wake of last week’s mass shooting in New Zealand. — Kristina Peterson, WSJ, "House Panel Seeks Answers From Tech CEOs Over Shooting Video," 19 Mar. 2019 The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Securities and Exchange Commission efforts to sanction stockbrokers for disseminating false statements to clients. — Brent Kendall, WSJ, "Supreme Court Sides With SEC in Broker False Statements Case," 27 Mar. 2019 Finally, America should redouble its resolve to find and fund innovative means of disseminating independent news and ideas in China. — Orville Schell And Larry Diamond, WSJ, "China Gets Its Message to Americans but Doesn’t Want to Reciprocate," 21 Dec. 2018 According to Time, the police worked with the press to disseminate information in the hopes of obtaining leads, but all law enforcement ended up getting were false confessions, all of which were eventually debunked. — Chloe Foussianes, Town & Country, "The True Story of I Am the Night: How the Black Dahlia and George Hodel Were Connected," 10 Feb. 2019 To disseminate these new units — to make sure that everyone in the world understood them — the inventors of the metric system decided to create physical objects to embody and define them. — Brian Resnick, Vox, "The world is about to redefine the kilogram," 15 Nov. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'disseminate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.