I sometimes see or hear these verbs used interchangeably.<\/p>\n
Problem:<\/strong> Explanation:<\/strong> Unless you are a terrorist or sadist, you want the police to defuse<\/em> a bomb.<\/p>\n The verb “diffuse” — spelled D-I-F-F-U-S-E — dates back to the late 1300s and means to spread or disseminate<\/em>, where the “dif” prefix means apart or away<\/em> and the “fuse” suffix comes from a form of the Latin word “fundere”, which literally means to melt<\/em>.<\/p>\n Once the police have defused<\/em> a bomb, they often will diffuse<\/em> a message to the public about their success.<\/p>\n I believe that the oral\/auditory confusion comes from mispronunciations of these two verbs.<\/p>\n I believe that the written confusion comes from ignorance about the roots of these two verbs and from misspellings originating from that ignorance or the mispronunciations.<\/p>\n Solution:<\/strong> I sometimes see or hear these verbs used interchangeably. Problem: The verbs “defuse” and “diffuse” are not synonyms. Explanation: The verb “defuse” — spelled D-E-F-U-S-E — was coined in the early 1940s and means to remove the fuse from, where the “de” prefix in this verb indicates negation and the “fuse” suffix refers to a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,22,4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mispronunciations","category-misspellings","category-verbs","category-versus"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe verbs “defuse” and “diffuse” are not<\/em> synonyms.<\/p>\n
\nThe verb “defuse” — spelled D-E-F-U-S-E — was coined in the early 1940s and means to remove the fuse from<\/em>, where the “de” prefix in this verb indicates negation and the “fuse” suffix refers to a cord of readily combustible material<\/em> and comes from the Italian word “fuso”, which literally means spindle<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nRemember that the “de” in “defuse” indicates negation, and remember that the “dif” in “diffuse” means apart or away<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"