divorce

noun

1. 1

   The legal dissolution of a marriage.

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

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

2. 2

   A 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.

   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

   To make divorce of their incorporate league

3. 3

   The separation of a bonded pair of animals.

4. 4

   obsoleteThat 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.

verb

1. 1

   To legally dissolve a marriage between two people.

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

   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.

2. 2

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

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

3. 3

   To obtain a legal divorce.

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

4. 4

   To separate something that was connected.

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

   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.

Forms

plural

divorces

past tense

divorced

past participle

divorced

present participle

divorcing

third person singular

divorces