dissolves

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of dissolve.

   Salt dissolves readily in warm water, leaving a clear solution.

   The court dissolves the partnership whenever the partners can no longer agree.

   Note

   The -s form carries both halves of the verb: it can take an object or stand alone. In "the court dissolves the partnership," someone actively ends a union. In "salt dissolves in water," the substance itself breaks down and no object is needed. The same spelling also serves as the plural of the film term. After a determiner or adjective, as in "several long dissolves," it is the noun.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of dissolve.

   The montage relied on gentle dissolves to link one memory to the next.

   Several long dissolves carried the audience through the passage of years.

   Note

   A film editor's word, counted like any other edit. The noun names a piece of film punctuation, a gradual transition from one scene to the next, so it takes a plural whenever a sequence holds more than one. Adjectives of pace and tone suit it, as in long, slow or gentle dissolves, because the point is how gradually the change happens. Only the film sense is a noun; melting and disbanding belong to the verb.

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