divide

Etymology

PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English dividen, from Latin dīvidere (“to divide”). Displaced native Old English tōdǣlan.

verb

1. (transitive) To split or separate (something) into two or more parts.
   a wall divides two houses; a stream divides the towns
2. (transitive) To share (something) by dividing it.
   How shall we divide this pie?
3. (transitive) To cause (a group of people) to disagree.
   Words divide us, Wiktionary unites us.
   It is a debate that divides Americans as evenly as any of the great political issues of the day. Should they leave their butter on the counter, or must they keep it in the fridge? 29 April 2023, Will Pavia, “Why butter must come out of the fridge”, in The Times, London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-04-28
4. (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.
5. (transitive, arithmetic) To be a divisor of.
   3 divides 6.
6. (intransitive) To separate into two or more parts.
7. (intransitive, biology) Of a cell, to reproduce by dividing.
   [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. 2013-07-20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
8. To disunite in opinion or interest; to make discordant or hostile; to set at variance.
9. (obsolete) To break friendship; to fall out.
   love cools, friendship / falls off, brothers divide. 1605, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear, I. ii. 107
10. (obsolete) To have a share; to partake.
    Make good this ostentation, and you shall / Divide in all with us. 1608, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, I. vi. 87
11. To vote, as in the British parliament and other legislatures, 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.
12. To mark divisions on; to graduate.
    to divide a sextant
13. (music) To play or sing in a florid style, or with variations.

noun

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.
   The extended instruction set may double the speed again if a lot of multiplies and divides are done. 1975, Byte, numbers 1-8, page 14
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. File:The team crossed streams and jumped across deep, narrow divides in the glacier.ogg
   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. 1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate
5. (hydrology) The topographical boundary dividing two adjacent catchment basins, such as a ridge or a crest.