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To break asunder; to rend. Thomson.

Causing, or tending to cause, disruption; caused by disruption; breaking through; bursting; as, the disruptive discharge of an electrical battery. Nichol.

To shiver or break in pieces. [Obs.]

The process by which a compound body breaks up into simpler constituents; -- said particularly of the action of heat on gaseous or volatile substances; as, the dissociation of the sulphur molecules; the dissociation of ammonium chloride into hydrochloric acid and ammonia.

The dispersion of an assembly by terminating its sessions; the breaking up of a partnership. Dissolution is the civil death of Parliament. Blackstone.

To separate into competent parts; to disorganize; to break up; hence, to bring to an end by separating the parts, sundering a relation, etc.; to terminate; to destroy; to deprive of force; as, to dissolve a partnership; to dissolve Parliament. Lest his ungoverned rage dissolve the life. Shak.

Melting; breaking up; vanishing. -- Dis*solv"ing*ly, adv. Dissolving view, a picture which grows dim and is gradually replaced by another on the same field; -- an effect produced by magic lanterns.

Sudden display; flash; glitter. [R.] A smile . . . breaks out with the brightest distriction. Collier.

To alienate in spirit; to break the concord of. Go on both in hand, O nations, never be disunited, be the praise . . . of all posterity! Milton.

To break friendship; to fall out. Shak.

m of praise to God designed to be sung or chanted by the choir or the congregation. David breaks forth into these triumphant praises and doxologies. South.

To break, as land, by drawing a drag or harrow over it; to harrow; to draw a drag along the bottom of, as a stream or other water; hence, to search, as by means of a drag. Then while I dragged my brains for such a song. Tennyson.

A housebreaker or thief. [Obs.] Old Play (1631).

To break and train for use, as a horse or other animal. To dress up or out, to dress elaborately, artificially, or pompously. "You see very often a king of England or France dressed up like a Julius Cæsar." Addison. -- To dress a ship (Naut.), to ornament her by hoisting the national colors at the peak and mastheads,…

or perquisites of the Admiralty, arising from seizure of an enemy's ships in port on the breaking out of war, or those coming into port in ignorance of hostilities existing, or from such ships as are taken by noncommissioned captors; also, the proceeds of wrecks, and derelict property at sea. The droits of admiralty a…

to dive; to plunge the head in water or other liquid; to dip. In Tiber ducking thrice by break of day. Dryden.

To break; to disperse. [R.] Clarendon.

A plowing. [Obs.] Such land as ye break up for barley to sow, Two earths at the least, ere ye sow it, bestow. Tusser.

A breaking out with some interjectional particle.

To break or dash in pieces; to demolish; as, to elide the force of an argument. [Obs.] Hooker.