To dissolve is to absorb or disperse something in liquid until it disappears into a uniform solution — sugar vanishing into tea, salt into stock, a stock cube into hot water. Dissolution happens when the solvent’s molecules prise the solute’s particles apart and surround them: stirring, heat, and fine particle size all speed the process by increasing contact. The result is a true solution, stable and evenly flavoured, distinct from a suspension where particles merely hang and eventually settle. Cooks manipulate dissolution constantly — blooming gelatin, making syrups, hydrating starches — and the food industry engineers it into instant products designed to dissolve in seconds. Solubility limits set the boundaries: beyond saturation, no more will dissolve, and the excess sits undissolved. It is among the most ordinary and most consequential transformations in the kitchen.