divide

From Latin dīvidō (“divide”)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈvaɪd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

divide (third-person singular simple present divides, present participle dividing, simple past and past participle divided)

1. (transitive) To split or separate (something) into two or more parts.

   a wall divides two houses; a stream divides the towns

   • Bible, 1 Kings iii. 25

     Divide the living child in two.

2. (transitive) To share (something) by dividing it.

   How shall we divide this pie?

   • Spenser

     true justice unto people to divide

3. (transitive, arithmetic, with by) To calculate the number (the quotient) by which you must multiply one given number (the divisor) to produce a second given number (the dividend).

   If you divide 6 by 3, you get 2.

4. (transitive, arithmetic) To be a divisor of.

   3 divides 6.

5. (intransitive) To separate into two or more parts.
6. (intransitive, biology) Of a cell, to reproduce by dividing.
   • 2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.

7. To disunite in opinion or interest; to make discordant or hostile; to set at variance.
   • Bible, Mark iii. 24

     If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

   • Prescott

     Every family became now divided within itself.

8. (obsolete) To break friendship; to fall out.
   • 1605, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear, I. ii. 107:

     love cools, friendship / falls off, brothers divide.

9. (obsolete) To have a share; to partake.
   • 1608, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, I. vi. 87:

     Make good this ostentation, and you shall / Divide in all with us.

10. To vote, as in the British Parliament, by the members separating themselves into two parties (as on opposite sides of the hall or in opposite lobbies), that is, the ayes dividing from the noes.
    • Gibbon

      The emperors sat, voted, and divided with their equals.

11. To mark divisions on; to graduate.

    to divide a sextant

12. (music) To play or sing in a florid style, or with variations.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)

• (split into parts): cut up, disunite, partition, split, split up
• (share by dividing): divvy up, divide up, share, share out
• (separate into parts): separate, shear, split, split up

• (split into two or more parts): combine, merge, unify, unite
• (calculate times of multiplication): multiply

Terms derived from divide (verb and noun)

• continental divide
• Divide County
• divvy
• divide up, divvy up

• (act of dividing): division
• (the sum being divided; the upper term in a fraction): dividend
• (the number of parts in a division; the lower term in a fraction): divisor

• fraction, fraction slash, ⁄, fraction bar, vinculum (Australia)
• ratio, ∶ (also improperly :)
• (product of division): quotient
• (extra amount left by uneven division): remainder
• division sign, obelus, ÷
• division slash, ∕ (also improperly /)
• long division symbol, division bracket, )‾ or |‾

divide (plural divides)

1. A thing that divides.

   Stay on your side of the divide, please.

2. An act of dividing.

   The divide left most of the good land on my share of the property.

   • 1975, Byte (issues 1-8, page 14)

     The extended instruction set may double the speed again if a lot of multiplies and divides are done.

3. A distancing between two people or things.

   There is a great divide between us.

4. (geography) A large chasm, gorge, or ravine between two areas of land.

   If you're heading to the coast, you'll have to cross the divide first.

   The team crossed streams and jumped across deep, narrow divides in the glacier.

   • 1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate

     Carrying light packs they left camp at daylight the next morning. Trails there were none; but they followed the general course of a small creek, crossed a divide, and dipped down into a beautifully timbered valley watered by a swift, large creek of almost riverlike dimensions.

• divied

• Rhymes: -ide

divide

1. third-person singular present indicative of dividere

dīvide

1. second-person singular present active imperative of dīvidō

divide

1. Second-person singular (tu) affirmative imperative of dividir
2. Third-person singular (ele, ela, also used with tu and você^?) present indicative of dividir

divide

1. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present indicative form of dividir.
2. Informal second-person singular (tú) affirmative imperative form of dividir.