distribute
Formsdistributes, distributing, distributed
- 1To divide something into portions and hand the portions out to recipients.
Relief workers distribute food rations to each household in the camp.
The committee distributed the grant money among twelve community projects.
Similarallocate, dispense, apportion, share, divide
Note
The core sense, and the one the word's Latin parts spell out: dis- "apart" plus tribuere "to give", the same verb behind tribute. Giving apart is exactly the action. A whole is broken up, and the pieces go to different hands. The shares go among a group (bread among his followers) or to each recipient in turn, and the whole being divided is the object of the verb.
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6To classify a set of things by separating them into distinct categories.
Archivists distribute incoming documents into folders according to subject and date.
The biologist distributed the specimens into categories based on wing shape.
Similarclassify, sort, categorize, group, arrange
- 7To organize a workforce so that employees work remotely from multiple locations rather than a single office.
Some firms distribute their engineering teams across a dozen time zones.
As a fully distributed company, the agency has no head office, and its designers work from home in four countries.
Oppositecentralize
Note
Business English uses it mostly through the past participle, as an adjective before a noun: a distributed business, a distributed employee, a distributed team. It names how an organization is built rather than an action anyone performs, so distributed turns up far more often than the finite verb. Remote describes the worker; distributed describes the whole arrangement.
- 8To apply across each term of a sum or other combination, giving the same result as applying the operation to the whole.
Multiplication distributes over addition in ordinary arithmetic.
In Boolean algebra, conjunction and disjunction each distribute over the other.
Note
Mathematicians use it intransitively, with over introducing the second operation: multiplication distributes over addition. The subject is the operation itself, not a person doing anything, and the verb is defined through the adjective distributive, as in the distributive law. Unlike the everyday sense of sharing out, nothing physical is spread here; what carries across each term is the operation.
- 9To spread ink in an even film over a surface such as a roller or ink table before printing.
Press operators distribute the ink thoroughly on the rollers before running the first sheets.
He distributed a fresh layer of ink over the stone slab with quick, overlapping passes.
Similarspread
Note
The pressroom's other use of the word, beside returning type to the case: here the object is ink, worked into a uniform film on rollers or an ink table so the type takes an even charge at every impression. It sits closer to the scattering sense than to sharing out, but the aim is evenness rather than coverage.
- 10To break up type that has been printed from and return each piece to its proper compartment in the case.
Compositors distribute the type after a job, dropping each letter into its proper box.
He distributed the headline type first, since the large letters were easiest to read.
Note
A compositor's word from hand-set printing, and the reverse of setting type: once a form had been printed from, each letter went back to its own box so it could be set again. Speed and accuracy at the task marked a skilled hand. The object is always type, which keeps this use clear of the everyday handing-out senses.
- 11To use a term so that it applies to every member of the class it names, taking it as universal within a premise.
Universal statements distribute their subject term, while particular statements do not.
The proposition 'No reptiles are mammals' distributes both of its terms.
Note
Logicians apply it to terms, not to things. Richard Whately's Elements of Logic (1826) puts it in the passive, saying a term "is said to be distributed" when it stands for everything it can apply to, and the participle carries the idea: a term either is distributed in a proposition or is not. Subjects of universal propositions are distributed, and so are the predicates of negative ones.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of distribute apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
From Latin distributus, the past participle of distribuere ("to divide, distribute"), formed from dis- ("apart") and tribuere ("to give, impart"), the same root seen in tribute.