Other forms: divided, dividing, divides
To divide something is to break one whole into parts. Divide the cake into eight, divide the class into pairs, divide the money between the three of you.
Maths leans on it constantly: twelve divided by four is three, which is what the calculator's division key does. The prepositions each do a different job — divide something INTO parts, divide it BETWEEN or AMONG people, divide one number BY another. It also means splitting people apart in opinion: a question that divides the country, a divided family, a party divided over Europe. As a noun, a divide is the gap itself — the digital divide between people with good internet and people without — and in North America the Continental Divide is the mountain line that decides which ocean a river ends up in.
1verbdivideTo separate something into parts.
“Divide the dough into twelve equal pieces.”
3verbfindTo find how many times one number goes into another.
“Divide sixty by five and you get twelve.”
4verbdisagreeTo make people disagree and take opposing sides.
“The proposal divided the village for years.”
5noungapA gap or difference that separates two groups.
“The report describes a widening divide between town and country.”
Also accepted in games: split
Divide came into Middle English as dividen, straight from Latin divido, to divide. It pushed aside the Old English verb todaelan, whose family lives on in the English word deal, which once meant a portion or a part of something — which is exactly what dividing leaves you holding.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Latin
dīvidō
Middle English
dividen
English, today
divide
From Middle English dividen, from Latin dīvidō. From Middle English dividen, from Latin dīvidō (“to divide”). Displaced native tōdǣlan related to English deal which formerly meant a “portion” or “part” of something.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA