divide
pronunciation
How to pronounce divide in British English:
UK [dɪˈvaɪd]
How to pronounce divide in American English:
US [dɪˈvaɪd]
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- Noun:
- a serious disagreement between two groups of people (typically producing tension or hostility)
- a ridge of land that separates two adjacent river systems
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- Verb:
- separate into parts or portions
- perform a division
- act as a barrier between; stand between
- come apart
- make a division or separation
- force, take, or pull apart
Word Origin
- divide
- divide: [14] Etymologically, divide shares its underlying notion of ‘separation’ with widow ‘woman parted from or bereft of her husband’, which comes ultimately from the same source. English acquired it from Latin dīvidere ‘split up, divide’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘apart’ and -videre, a verbal element meaning ‘separate’ which is represented in Sanskrit vindháte ‘is empty’ as well as in widow, and goes back to an Indo-European base *weidh- ‘separate’.English device and devise come ultimately from *dīvisāre, a Vulgar Latin derivative of dīvidere, and individual belongs to the same word family.=> device, individual, widow
- divide (v.)
- early 14c., from Latin dividere "to force apart, cleave, distribute," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + -videre "to separate," from PIE root *weidh- "to separate" (see widow; also see with). Mathematical sense is from early 15c. Divide and rule (c. 1600) translates Latin divide et impera, a maxim of Machiavelli. Related: Divided; dividing.
- divide (n.)
- 1640s, "act of dividing," from divide (v.). Meaning "watershed, separation between river valleys" is first recorded 1807, American English.
Example
- 1. Science is even crossing the region 's deepest divide .
- 2. These divide chinese citizens into rural and urban inhabitants .
- 3. New walls threaten to divide religions , tribes and classes .
- 4. The japanese divide into different schools of thought .
- 5. Sixteen wanted to divide the land up among villagers .