divorce

From Old French divorce, from Latin dīvortium, from dīvertere (“to turn aside”), from dī- (“apart”) + vertere (“to turn”); see verse.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪˈvɔːs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɪˈvɔɹs/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /dɪˈvo(ː)ɹs/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /dɪˈvoəs/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)s

divorce (countable and uncountable, plural divorces)

1. The legal dissolution of a marriage.

   Richard obtained a divorce from his wife some years ago, but hasn't returned to the dating scene.

2. A separation of connected things.

   The Civil War split between Virginia and West Virginia was a divorce based along cultural and economic as well as geographic lines.

   • c. 1599, Shakespeare, William, Henry V, Act 5, Scene 2:

     To make divorce of their incorporate league

3. (obsolete) That which separates.
   • c. 1613, Shakespeare, William; Fletcher, John, Henry VIII, Act 2, Scene 1:

     Go with me like good angels to my end; / And as the long divorce of steel falls on me, / Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, / And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, o' God's name.

• (legal dissolution of a marriage): divorcement
• (separation of connected things): partition, separation, severance

• marriage

• velvet divorce

divorce (third-person singular simple present divorces, present participle divorcing, simple past and past participle divorced)

1. (transitive) To legally dissolve a marriage between two people.

   A ship captain can marry couples, but cannot divorce them.

2. (transitive) To end one's own marriage to (a person) in this way.

   Lucy divorced Steve when she discovered that he had been unfaithful.

3. (intransitive) To obtain a legal divorce.

   Edna and Simon divorced last year; he got the house, and she retained the business.

4. (transitive) To separate something that was connected.

   The radical group voted to divorce itself from the main faction and start an independent movement.

   • c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or VVhat You VVill”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene iv], page 269:

     He is knight dubb'd with vnhatche'd Rapier, and on carpet conſideration, but he is a diuell in priuate brall, soules and bodies hath he diuorc'd three, and his incenſement at this moment is ſo implacable, that ſatisfaction can be none, but by pangs of death and ſepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giu't or take't.

• (to legally dissolve a marriage): split up
• (to separate something that was connected): disassociate, disjoint, dissociate, disunite, separate

• marry

• innocently divorced

• codrive

From Latin divortium.

• IPA^(key): /di.vɔʁs/

• audio

  (file)

divorce m (plural divorces)

1. divorce

divorce

1. first-person singular present indicative of divorcer
2. third-person singular present indicative of divorcer
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of divorcer
4. first-person singular present subjunctive of divorcer
5. second-person singular imperative of divorcer

• “divorce” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).