Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
dissemble, disassemble (vv.)
As a transitive verb dissemble means “to disguise or to conceal, especially a feeling or an emotion”: She dissembled her feelings of fear so well that no one suspected how frightened she was. As an intransitive verb, it means “to pretend, to conceal, to be hypocritical”: The only way to fool his captors was to dissemble, to pretend to be cowed. Disassemble is quite unrelated; it means “to take apart”: The child disassembled the alarm clock in record time.
