divide

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   perform a division

   Can you divide 49 by seven?

2. 2
   verb

   separate into parts or portions

   divide the cake into three equal parts

3. 3
   verb

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

   a wall divides two houses; a stream divides the towns

4. 4
   verb

   To share (something) by dividing it.

   How shall we divide this pie?

5. 5
   verb

   To cause (a group of people) to disagree.

   Words divide us, Wiktionary unites us.

6. 6
   verb

   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.

7. 7
   verb

   To be a divisor of.

   3 divides 6.

8. 8
   verb

   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.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is- Proto-Italic *dis- Latin dis- Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *dwi- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *h₁weydʰh₁-der. Proto-Italic *wiðō Latin *vidō Latin dīvidōder. Middle English dividen English divide PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English dividen, from Latin dīvidere (“to divide”). Displaced native Old English tōdǣlan.