Previous studies showed that many secondary school students and teachers have difficulties in distinguishing the phenomena of dissolution and diffusion, as well as the phenomena of diffusion and effusion. In this study, currently accepted term definitions of dissolution, diffusion and effusion were searched from the IUPAC Gold Book and the physical chemistry textbooks, and the points to differentiate the definitions were sought. Also, the term definitions of these three phenomena in the secondary school text books and the college general chemistry textbooks were surveyed and compared to the currently accepted definitions. It was found that dissolution is formation of one new phase from mixing two phases, while diffusion is the migration of matter down from the concentration gradient. The "concentration gradient" is considered to be a key point to distinguish diffusion from the dissolution. However, the concentration gradient was not mentioned in the definitions of diffusion in most of the secondary school textbooks and the college general chemistry textbooks. Effusion is differentiated from diffusion by the gas molecules escaping from the container through a tiny hole without collision. The definition of effusion was not found in most of the secondary school textbooks.