dispersal

disperse +‎ -al

• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)səl

dispersal (countable and uncountable, plural dispersals)

1. The act or result of dispersing or scattering; dispersion.
   • 2013 May-June, David Van Tassel, Lee DeHaan, “Wild Plants to the Rescue”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:

     Plant breeding is always a numbers game. […] The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, […]. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better. These rarities may be new mutations, or they can be existing ones that are neutral—or are even selected against—in a wild population. A good example is mutations that disrupt seed dispersal, leaving the seeds on the heads long after they are ripe.

2. A dispersal prison.
   • 2012, D. Drake, Prisons, Punishment and the Pursuit of Security

     Problems of control in dispersals and in other prisons necessarily instigated a multiplicity of working theories to explain the difficulties […]

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