defuse or diffuse

You defuse a dangerous situation by treating it like a bomb and removing its fuse; to diffuse, in contrast, is to spread something out: “Bob’s cheap cologne diffused throughout the room, wrecking the wine-tasting."

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• practicle vs practical
• ninty vs ninety
• gaurd vs guard
• seam vs seem
• buttox vs buttocks
• appauled vs appalled
• swam vs swum
• writting vs writing
• heal vs heel
• woman vs women

Definitions

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• v  remove the triggering device from

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• v  move outward
• v  spread or diffuse through
• v  cause to become widely known
• s  spread out; not concentrated in one place
  a large diffuse organization
• a  (of light) transmitted from a broad light source or reflected
• s  lacking conciseness
  a diffuse historical novel

News & Articles

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• With no easy options, Brazil's Rousseff strains to manage unrest
  By Jeferson Ribeiro and Brian Winter BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Few people in Brazil know what it's like to be 20-something and angry at the government quite like President Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff, a Marxist guerrilla during the 1960s who fought against a military dictatorship, now finds herself on the other side of power. She's struggling to defuse protests by more than 1 million people in ...
  June 24, 2013 - Reuters via Yahoo! News
• Putin offers gift to defuse flap over Super Bowl ring
  Putin offers gift to defuse flap over Super Bowl ring Published Jun 22, 2013 06:02PM MDT Moscow • Facing what he drolly called a “complicated international problem,” Vladimir Putin says he’s ready to give the New England Patriots’ owner custom jewelry to compensate for the Super Bowl ring that some imply the Russian president pocketed. The Super Bowl ring changed hands in 2005 when Robert Kraft ...
  June 23, 2013 - The Salt Lake Tribune
• Serena tries to end Sharapova row
  Serena Williams tried to defuse her war of words with Maria Sharapova on Sunday as the Wimbledon champion claimed she had apologised to the Russian for criticising her private life.
  June 23, 2013 - Fox News

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• Resident barricaded in home prompts Metro SWAT response
  Metro Police SWAT has been called to help diffuse a situation in which a person is barricaded inside a residence following a civil disturbance call.
  June 11, 2013 - Las Vegas Sun
• Resident barricaded in home prompts Metro SWAT response
  Metro Police SWAT has been called to help diffuse a situation in which a person is barricaded inside a residence following a civil disturbance call.
  June 11, 2013 - Las Vegas Sun
• Vacaville residents to hold bone marrow drive for family member
  Got a handful of minutes to spare?That's how long it could take to see if you can help save a life.Longtime Vacaville resident Ron Packer, 58, was recently diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and is in need of a bone marrow
  June 9, 2013 - The Vacaville Reporter