Disburse or disperse?
disburse is a verb meaning “To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury”; disperse is a verb meaning “To scatter in different directions”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) disperse is about 13 times as common as disburse.
What is the difference between disburse and disperse?
| disburse | disperse | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | verb, adjective |
| Meaning | To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury | To scatter in different directions To break up and disappear; to dissipate Scattered or spread out |
| Example | none recorded | The Jews are dispersed among all nations |
| Forms | disburses, disbursing, disbursed | disperses, dispersing, dispersed |
| Pronunciation | /dɪsˈbɝs/ [dɪsˈpɝs] | /dɪˈspɜːs/ /dɪˈspɝs/ |
| In writing | about once in every 7 million words | 2.0 times per million words |
Sources: disburse and disperse in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of disburse and disperse
disburse
- 1
To pay out, expend; usually from a public fund or treasury
disperse
- 1
To scatter in different directions
The Jews are dispersed among all nations
- 2
Scattered or spread out
- 3
To break up and disappear; to dissipate
- 4
To disseminate
- 5
To separate rays of light, etc., according to wavelength; to refract
- 6
To distribute throughout
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, disburse or disperse?
disburse appears about once in every 7 million words; disperse 2.0 times per million words.
disburse about once in every 7 million wordsdisperse 2.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search disburse vs disperse?
“disburse vs disperse” is searched about 2,400 times a month on Google and 190 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“disperse vs disburse”, “disburse or disperse”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.