divide (redirected from dividing)

divide

something between people or things to give shares of something to specific people or groups. (In a strict sense, only between two entities. Informally, between two or more.) I will have to divide the toys between the two children. He divided the tasks between the day crew and the night crew.

divide

(something) (up) (between someone or something) and divide something (up) (among someone or something) to give something out in shares to people or groups. (More informal with up. Between with two;among with more.) Please divide this up between the visitors. Cut the birthday cake and divide it up among all the party guests. Please divide up this pie between the children.

divide something (off) (from something or animals)

1. to separate something from something else. Let's divide the chickens off from the ducks and put the chickens in the shed. We divided off the chickens from the ducks.

2. to separate something from something else, using a partition. We divided the sleeping area off from the rest of the room. A curtain was used to divide off a sleeping area.

divide something fifty-fifty and split something fifty-fifty

to divide something into two equal parts. (The fifty means 50 percent.) Tommy and Billy divided the candy fifty-fifty. The robbers split the money fifty-fifty.

divide by something

to perform mathematical division by a particular number. Can you divide by sixteens? Add this figure to the next column and divide by twenty.

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divide and conquer/rule

a way of keeping yourself in a position of power by making the people under you disagree with each other so that they are unable to join together and remove you from your position A small minority have continued to govern by a policy of divide and conquer.

See also: and