sunder

What it means

1. dialectalobsoleteSundry; separate; different.

In a sentence

Notwithstanding its terrifically wide sweep, (some thirty feet or more,) and the hissing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would accomplish.

1842, Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*snter-
2. Proto-Germanic*sundraz“isolated, particular, alone”
3. Old Englishsundor-“separate, different”
4. Middle Englishsunder
5. Englishsunder

From Middle English sunder, from Old English sundor- (“separate, different”), from Proto-Germanic *sundraz (“isolated, particular, alone”), from Proto-Indo-European *snter-, *seni-, *senu-, *san- (“apart, without, for oneself”). Cognate with Old Saxon sundar (“particular, special”), Dutch zonder (“without”), German sonder- (“special”), German sondern (“to separate, set apart”), Old Norse sundr (“separate”), Danish sønder (“apart, asunder”), Latin sine (“without”).