halving

Pluralhalvings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process or instance of dividing something into two equal parts.

   The halving of the cell population happens at each stage of division.

   Engineers reported a halving of energy use after the upgrade.

   Similarbisection

   Oppositedoubling

   Note

   A countable noun at home in mathematics and the quantitative sciences, where halvings are tallied like any other operation, so that one new halving can yield several new infinite families of them. David C. Schneider's Quantitative Ecology (1994) groups it with doublings and quarterings as a proportional change. That sets it apart from an additive one: halving a quantity is not the same as subtracting a fixed amount from it.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of halve.

   The chef is halving each tomato before roasting them.

   Halving the budget meant cutting several programs.

   Note

   The -ing form of halve, with the final e dropped before the suffix. As a gerund it takes a direct object: halving the budget. By contrast, the countable noun needs of: the halving of the budget. The verb also reaches beyond arithmetic. A carpenter joins two timbers by halving them, cutting each away to half its thickness. In match play, halving means achieving a tie.

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