dissociate vs. disassociate

These two terms are unique on this list because it is not a mistake to use one or the other—they are synonyms, so they have the exact same meaning: “to remove from or cause to break the association of.” Some writers and guides prefer dissociate, possibly because it is shorter and more to the point, but it makes no difference to use disassociate instead; it just comes down to personal preference. For example:

One potential spelling error that may arise out of these two forms is to mistakenly spell dissociate with just one S—disociate. Because disassociate only has a single S initially, and because we pronounce the SS in dissociate as a single /s/ sound, it’s easy to think the alternate spelling is only spelled with one S. Be careful not to fall into this trap, though, because it is always incorrect.