# divorce

Pronunciation: US say "di-VORS" /dɪˈvɔɹs/; UK say "di-VAWS" /dɪˈvɔːs/

## Noun

1. The legal dissolution of a marriage by a court.
   - Simple: The legal ending of a marriage, decided by a court.
   - _The couple's divorce was finalized after months of negotiation._
   - _Changes in the law have made divorce easier to obtain in many states._
5. A separation or split between things that were once joined or closely connected.
   - Simple: A complete split between two things that were joined or worked together.
   - _Critics noted the divorce between the company's stated values and its actions._
   - _The film explores the divorce of art from commercial pressures._
7. The breakup of a mated animal pair that had previously bonded together.
   - Simple: The breaking of the bond between two animals that had paired up together.
   - _Albatross colonies show very low rates of divorce between mated partners._
   - _Researchers linked the pair's divorce to a poor breeding season._

## Verb

2. To legally end one's marriage to a particular person.
   - Simple: To officially end your marriage to your husband or wife.
   - _Many people who divorce their spouses still remain on friendly terms._
   - _She divorced her husband after discovering his secret debts._
3. To obtain a legal divorce, ending one's marriage through the courts.
   - Simple: To go through the legal steps that end your marriage.
   - _The couple divorced quietly, avoiding any public attention._
   - _In some countries it is still difficult for women to divorce._
4. To legally end the marriage uniting two people, as by a court's decree.
   - Simple: To officially end the marriage of two people, as a court does.
   - _The court divorced them in under a month._
   - _Historically, only Parliament could divorce a married couple._
6. To separate one thing from another to which it was joined or connected.
   - Simple: To split apart two things that were joined or linked.
   - _You cannot divorce a writer's words from the times in which they lived._
   - _The new policy divorced funding decisions from political influence._

## Noun

8. Something that causes separation; that which divides or parts two things. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Something that splits two things apart or keeps them divided.
   - _He called the wide river a natural divorce between the warring clans._
   - _Faith, she wrote, was no divorce between reason and wonder but their bond._

## Origin

From Old French divorce, from Latin dīvortium, from dīvertere ("to turn aside"), formed from dī- ("apart") plus vertere ("to turn").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/divorce (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).