divider

Etymology

It is formed from English divide + -er.^[2][3][4][5] The verb is from Middle English dividen, from Latin dīvidō (“to force apart, cleave, distribute”),^[2][4][6] formed from dis- (“apart”) and a verb element meaning "to separate".^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

One who deals out shares, a distributor: 1526, in Tyndale's translation of Luke 12,^[2][4] the verse that Johnson quotes as "Who made me a judge or divider over you?".^[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1534,^[8] and Dictionary.com to 1520–30.^[5]

Semantic evolution

From "one who shares out", the word widened in 1591 to anyone or anything that separates a whole into parts,^[2][4] then from 1644, in Milton, to a cause of disunion or discord.^[2][4] For a short time (1588–1610) a divider was also someone who made philosophical distinctions.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) gave four senses: that which parts a thing into pieces, a distributor, a disuniter, with Swift's "Money, the great divider of the world", and a kind of compasses.^[7] The compasses, dividers, are recorded from 1703,^[2] and later technical uses include timbers dividing a mine shaft and a part of a reaping machine that parts off the crop.^[2][8] The household sense, a screen or piece of furniture that divides a room, dates from 1960 in the OED^[2] but from 1959 in Etymonline.^[4] In Scotland a divider was a soup ladle.^[9]

Timeline

• 1526 – one who distributes or shares out.^[2][4]
• 1588 – one who makes philosophical distinctions (obsolete by 1610).^[2]
• 1591 – one who or that which divides a whole into parts.^[2][4]
• 1644 – one who or that which disunites; a cause of discord.^[2][4]
• 1703 – dividers, a kind of compasses.^[2]
• 1797 – in arithmetic, a divisor (obsolete, rare).^[2]
• 1960 – a partition or screen, especially a piece of furniture dividing a room.^[2] Etymonline dates it to 1959.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person or thing that divides.^[10][8]
2. A screen, partition or piece of furniture that divides a room into separate areas: A tall bookcase served as a divider in the studio flat.^[10][2][3]
3. dividers (plural): a pair of compasses for measuring, marking and transferring dimensions.^[8][2][3]
4. (electronics) A circuit whose output is a fixed fraction of its input.^[10]
5. A cause of disunion or discord.^[2][3]
6. A person who distributes or shares something out.^[2][3]
7. (mining) One of the timbers placed across a mine shaft to divide it into compartments.^[8][2]
8. On a mower or harvester, a projecting part that separates the crop to be cut.^[8]
9. (obsolete, 1588–1610) A person who makes philosophical distinctions.^[2][3]

Word family

• room divider
• voltage divider

Related words

• divide
• divisor
• division
• dividend
• divisive

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins