divide: [14] Etymologically, divide shares its underlying notion of ‘separation’ with widow ‘woman parted from or bereft of her husband’, which comes ultimately from the same source. English acquired it from Latin dīvidere ‘split up, divide’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘apart’ and -videre, a verbal element meaning ‘separate’ which is represented in Sanskrit vindháte ‘is empty’ as well as in widow, and goes back to an Indo-European base *weidh- ‘separate’.
English device and devise come ultimately from *dīvisāre, a Vulgar Latin derivative of dīvidere, and individual belongs to the same word family. => device, individual, widow
divide (v.)
early 14c., from Latin dividere "to force apart, cleave, distribute," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + -videre "to separate," from PIE root *weidh- "to separate" (see widow; also see with).
Mathematical sense is from early 15c. Divide and rule (c. 1600) translates Latin divide et impera, a maxim of Machiavelli. Related: Divided; dividing.
divide (n.)
1640s, "act of dividing," from divide (v.). Meaning "watershed, separation between river valleys" is first recorded 1807, American English.
双语例句
1. Remove the meat with a fork and divide it among four plates.
用餐叉把肉叉走，分到4个盘里。
来自柯林斯例句
2. She has done more to divide the Conservatives than anyone else.
她在分裂保守党这件事上所起的作用比任何人都大。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Cells divide and renew as part of the human growth process.
细胞不断地分裂更新，这是人体发育过程的一部分。
来自柯林斯例句
4. Add them together, divide by five, and you've got the average. Okay?
把它们相加再除以5就是平均数，明白吗？
来自柯林斯例句
5. Measure the floor area of the greenhouse and divide it by six.