dividing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of divide.

   The teacher spent the lesson dividing the class into small reading groups.

   Dividing the inheritance fairly took the family months of negotiation.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. After be it builds the progressive (the road is dividing). As a gerund it takes a noun's place, as in Dividing seven dollars among three people is difficult. It carries every sense of divide, from splitting and sharing to setting people against one another and working out a quotient. The same spelling also serves the adjective of separation and the noun for an act of division.

2. 2
   adjective

   Serving to separate one area, group, or thing from another.

   A thick dividing curtain split the hall into two meeting spaces.

   The mountain range acts as a dividing barrier between the two climates.

   Similarseparating

   Note

   A job description rather than an action: a dividing wall is one built to separate, whether or not anything is happening to it now. That is what sets it apart from the participle, which describes division in progress. It does not take degrees, so nothing is more dividing than something else. It sits before its noun, in pairings like dividing wall.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   An act of separating something into two or more parts or portions.

   The dividing of the company's profits followed a strict formula.

   A careful dividing of responsibilities prevented confusion among the staff.

   Similardivision, splitting, sharing, allocation, apportionment

   Note

   Here the -ing form has become a true noun, one that takes an article, an of-phrase and even a plural: dividings. Albert Barnes, writing in 1840, could speak of the dividings of spoil after battle. The plural marks the line with the gerund, which names an activity without counting it. Once you can say two dividings, you are using the noun.

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