Dissolucioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of breaking something up or melting it apart ; the death or wasting away of the body ; a loose, sinful way of living marked by excess
2. Splitting a substance or union into its parts ; the ending of life as the body decays ; a lax, self-indulgent conduct given over to vice
3. A breaking apart or undoing of a bond ; the passing of the body into decay and death ; reckless, licentious behavior that abandons restraint

Etymology: Middle English "dissolucioun" is a Middle English form of a word that came into English from Old French "dissolution," itself from Latin "dissolutio," a noun from "dissolvere," meaning "to loosen apart" or "to break up." The Latin verb combined "dis-" (apart) with "solvere" (to loosen), the same root behind "solve" and "solution." So the word's core idea is literally unloosing something until it comes apart. The sense of bodily decay came first in many medieval texts, where "dissolution" described the body breaking down at death. From there it could describe the wasting of a dying person, and the same idea of coming apart led to the sense of the body's natural breakdown after death. The moral sense, a loose and sinful way of living, grew from the notion of a life coming apart at the seams. Medieval writers used "dissolute" and its related nouns to describe people who had let their discipline and restraint slip away, and the image of a self loosened from its proper bonds carried that meaning forward.