散

• Physical Dispersion: To scatter or spread (e.g., seeds); the clearing or dissipation of mist, clouds, or smoke.
• Social/Organizational Dissolution: The breaking up of a collective entity into individuals. This may be natural (a crowd drifting away) or formal (an authority dismissing a meeting or army).
• Loose or Unconstrained: Physical looseness (e.g., clothing); stylistic or behavioral informality; conversely, a lack of discipline or focus.
• Mental/Emotional States: Cognitive lack of concentration ("scattered" mind); the release or subsiding of tension, anger, or grief.
• Financial: The spending or distribution of wealth as opposed to hoarding.
• Medicine (TCM): As a verb, the therapeutic action of dispersing stagnation (瘀), wind, or heat; as a noun, powdered medication (distinguished from 丸 pills).

• Intransitive: The subject disperses or clears.
• Transitive: To disperse or scatter an object or feeling.
• Attributive: Describing a state of looseness or a specific medicinal form.

Conceptual opposite of 集 (gather) and 聚 (cluster).

Tang-period reading: *sɑ̀n.

The glyph does not explicitly signal the distinction between dispersal (accidental/natural) and dismissal (intentional/authoritative); this must be inferred from the agent of the action. Note that 散 generally implies a separation of parts rather than total disappearance; the constituent elements typically remain.