indivisible

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English indivisible, also indevisible and indyvysible,^[2][3] borrowed from Late Latin indīvīsibilis (“not divisible”),^{[4][3][5][6][7]} from in- (“not”) and dīvīsibilis (“divisible”), the source of divisible.^[4][3][8] That adjective is from the past-participle stem of Latin dīvidō (“to divide”).^[8] Barnhart and Etymonline add a French source, Middle French indivisible,^[9][8] and the OED compares the French word, recorded from the 13th or 14th century.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Impossible to divide into parts: about 1380, in the English Wycliffite Sermons,^[4] in a passage about things made of partis indevysible.^[2] Barnhart and the Middle English Dictionary date the same text to before 1425,^[9][2] and Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Hoad notes that the word was rare before the 16th century.^[10] Middle English also used it figuratively, of honour that could not be diminished or destroyed.^[2] It could also mean "inseparable", a use now obsolete, and "incapable of being shared out among a number".^[4] The noun appears in 1644, in K. Digby's Two Treatises, for an infinitely small particle or quantity;^[4][3] Johnson (1755) quoted Digby's "perfect indivisible" to explain the idea of an atom.^[11] Mathematics uses it for a quantity that can't be divided further,^[3] and for a number that leaves a remainder when divided by another.^[12] Merriam-Webster Unabridged illustrates the adjective with Francis Bellamy's "one nation, indivisible".^[3] Etymonline records undividable from the 1540s.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – not able to be divided.^[4]
• 1644 – noun, an infinitely small particle or quantity.^[4][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not able to be divided or separated into parts: They saw the two issues as indivisible.^[12][3][4]
2. (mathematics) Leaving a remainder when divided by a given number: Eleven is indivisible by four.^[12]

Noun

1. Something that can't be divided; in mathematics, a quantity assumed to admit no further division.^[3][4][5]

Word family

• indivisibleness
• indivisibly
• indivisibility

Related words

• individual
• divisible
• divide
• division

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins