Meaning

noun (film) a gradual transition from one scene to the next; the next scene is gradually superimposed as the former scene fades out

verb become weaker

verb cause to go into a solution

originRecorded since c. 1374 (displacing Old English toliesan) as Middle English dissolven, from Latin dissolvere (“to loosen up, break apart”) but with the sense from Anglo-Norman dissoldre (variant of Old French dissoudre), itself from dis- (“apart”) + solvere (“to loose, loosen”). By surface analysis, dis- + solve.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0