Dictionary

disassimilation en · NOUN

Etymology

From dis- + assimilation.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) catabolism (metabolism with the release of energy)
   • There is a white-black substance which when acted upon by the visible rays of light undergoes disassimilation and sets up nerve impulses that arouse in the brain the sensation of white. 1907, William Henry Howell, A Text-book of physiology, page 342:
   • His experiments show “that about four-fifths of our disassimilations are the result of transformations within the body, comparable to the oxidation of alcohol, and that the remaining one-fifth of the disassimilations are formed at the expense of the living tissues themselves, free of all demands on foreign oxygen." 1894, The Dental Register, volume 48, page 198:
   • It shows that the brain is not important to the proper performance of the functions of assimilation and disassimilation—or those of organic life. 1851 March 14, Buffalo Medical Journal, volume 6, number 10, page 584:
2. The act of becoming less assimilated or integrated, particularly of ethnic groups.
   • I see Jewish Renewal as a late twentieth-century articulation of what I called the second stage of disassimilation of American Jews, its constructive/ illustrative phase. 2013, Shaul Magid, American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society:
   • At this point, "a process of disassimilation begins. The arts, life, and ideals of the nationality become central and paramount; ethnic and national differences change in status from disadvantages to distinctions." 2007, Kristofer Allerfeldt, The Progressive Era in the USA, 1890-1921, page 143:
   • Judging from the autobiographical texts of these three authors, Natives often mixed assimilation with a degree of disassimilation. 2004, Joel Pfister, Individuality incorporated: Indians and the multicultural modern:

Forms

Antonyms

assimilation

Relateds

disassimilate