divide: [14] Etymologically, divide shares its underlying notion of ‘separation’ with widow ‘woman parted from or bereft of her husband’, which comes ultimately from the same source. English acquired it from Latin dīvidere ‘split up, divide’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘apart’ and -videre, a verbal element meaning ‘separate’ which is represented in Sanskrit vindháte ‘is empty’ as well as in widow, and goes back to an Indo-European base *weidh- ‘separate’.
English device and devise come ultimately from *dīvisāre, a Vulgar Latin derivative of dīvidere, and individual belongs to the same word family. => device, individual, widow
divide (v.)
early 14c., from Latin dividere "to force apart, cleave, distribute," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + -videre "to separate," from PIE root *weidh- "to separate" (see widow; also see with).
Mathematical sense is from early 15c. Divide and rule (c. 1600) translates Latin divide et impera, a maxim of Machiavelli. Related: Divided; dividing.
divide (n.)
1640s, "act of dividing," from divide (v.). Meaning "watershed, separation between river valleys" is first recorded 1807, American English.
例文
1. Remove the meat with a fork and divide it among four plates.
フォークをフォークで4つの皿に分けた。
2.She has done more to divide the Conservatives than anyone else.
彼女が保守党を分裂させることに果たした役割は誰よりも大きい。
3.Cells divide and renew as part of the human growth process.
細胞は絶えず分裂更新し、これは人体の発育過程の一部である。
4.Add them together， divide by five，and you 've got the average.Okay？
それらを足して5で割ると平均数になる、わかりますか？
5.Measure the floor area of the greenhouse and divide it by six.