divorce

plural divorces

1. countableuncountableThe legal dissolution of a marriage.

   Richard obtained a divorce from his wife some years ago, but hasn't returned to the dating scene.

   1 more example

   Kate Merrill: Do you ever regret it, Liz? Liz Frances: The divorce? Not as much as I regret the marriage.

   1999 February 3, Anthony Horowitz et al., “Strangler's Wood”, in Midsomer Murders

   Synonyms: divorcement

2. countableuncountableA separation of connected things.

   The Civil War split between Virginia and West Virginia was a divorce based along cultural and economic as well as geographic lines.

   2 more examples

   The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes. This divorce of a product from its voyage to us is perhaps the thing that Amazon has sold us most successfully

   2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian

   To make divorce of their incorporate league

   c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, act 5, scene 2

   Synonyms: partition, separation, severance

3. countableuncountablebiologyThe separation of a bonded pair of animals.
4. countableobsoleteuncountableThat which separates.

   Go with me like good angels to my end; / And as the long divorce of steel falls on me, / Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, / And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, o' God's name.

   c. 1613, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Henry VIII, act 2, scene 1

present singular third person divorces · participle present divorcing · participle past divorced · past divorced

1. transitiveTo legally dissolve a marriage between two people.

   A ship captain can marry couples, but cannot divorce them.

   1 more example

   As Fire Island’s reputation grew, so did the fame of its residents. In 1977, after divorcing his first wife, Calvin Klein bought one of Gifford’s beachfront homes.

   2025 June 11, Oliver Wainwright, “‘Made for sex’: the hedonistic party palaces of New York’s Fire Island – and the blond bombshell who made them”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 25 Aug 2025

   Synonyms: split up

2. transitiveTo end one's own marriage to (a person) in this way.

   Lucy divorced Steve when she discovered that he had been unfaithful.

3. intransitiveTo obtain a legal divorce.

   Edna and Simon divorced last year; he got the house, and she retained the business.

4. transitiveTo separate something that was connected.

   The radical group voted to divorce itself from the main faction and start an independent movement.

   1 more example

   He is knight dubb'd with vnhatche'd Rapier, and on carpet conſideration, but he is a diuell in priuate brall, soules and bodies hath he diuorc'd three, and his incenſement at this moment is ſo implacable, that ſatisfaction can be none, but by pangs of death and ſepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giu't or take't.

   c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 269

   Synonyms: disassociate, disjoint, dissociate, disunite, separate

1. The 65th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.