dissimilate

1. 1.

   become dissimilar by changing the sound qualities

   “These consonants dissimilate”

   Antonymsassimilate

   Broaderchange

   phonetics

2. 2.

   make dissimilar; cause to become less similar

   Antonymsassimilate

   Broaderchange
3. 3.

   become dissimilar or less similar

   “These two related tribes of people gradually dissimilated over time”

   Antonymsassimilate

   Broaderchange

   Narrowerdifferentiate

Other forms of dissimilate

past tense

dissimilated·

present participle

dissimilating·

third person

dissimilates·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about dissimilate

What does dissimilate mean?

dissimilate means "become dissimilar by changing the sound qualities". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in dissimilate?

dissimilate has 4 syllables: dis-si-mi-late. The stress falls on "si".

What is the opposite of dissimilate?

The recorded antonyms are assimilate, assimilate, assimilate.

Is dissimilate a common word?

dissimilate is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.