Verb

(separat)

To divide (a thing) into separate parts.

To disunite something from one thing; To disconnect.

* Dryden

From the fine gold I separate the alloy.

* Bible, Romans viii. 35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

To cause (things or people) to be separate.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson

, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […];  […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment.}}

To divide itself into separate pieces or substances.

(obsolete) To set apart; to select from among others, as for a special use or service.

* Bible, Acts xiii. 2

Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.

Verb

(divid)

To split or separate (something) into two or more parts.

a wall divides''' two houses; a stream '''divides the towns

* Bible, 1 Kings iii. 25

Divide the living child in two.

To share (something) by dividing it.

* Spenser

true justice unto people to divide

(arithmetic) To calculate the number (the quotient) by which you must multiply one given number (the divisor) to produce a second given number (the dividend).

(arithmetic) To be a divisor of.

To separate into two or more parts.

(biology) Of a cell, to reproduce by dividing.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.}}

To disunite in opinion or interest; to make discordant or hostile; to set at variance.

* Bible, Mark iii. 24

If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

* Prescott

Every family became now divided within itself.

(obsolete) To break friendship; to fall out.

* 1605 , , I. ii. 107:

love cools, friendship / falls off, brothers divide .

(obsolete) To have a share; to partake.

* 1608 , , I. vi. 87:

Make good this ostentation, and you shall / Divide in all with us.

To vote, as in the British Parliament, by the members separating themselves into two parties (as on opposite sides of the hall or in opposite lobbies), that is, the ayes dividing from the noes.

* Gibbon

The emperors sat, voted, and divided with their equals.

To mark divisions on; to graduate.

to divide a sextant

(music) To play or sing in a florid style, or with variations.

(Spenser)