divorce
- 01 B1 Intermediate
n.the legal ending of a marriage by a court.
n.the formal legal dissolution of a marriage by a judicial body or other competent authority.
Simple“After ten years of marriage, they decided to get a divorce.”
In context“The couple reached an amicable agreement regarding the division of assets before filing for a formal divorce.”
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
n.a complete separation between two things that used to be connected.
n.a total separation or disjunction between entities, concepts, or groups that were formerly associated.
Simple“There is often a divorce between what politicians promise and what they actually do.”
In context“Critics argued that the new policy represented a dangerous divorce between economic theory and the reality of the local market.”
SynonymsAntonyms - 03 C1 Advanced
n.when two animals that usually stay together for life choose to find new partners.
n.the dissolution of a pair bond between mated animals, typically observed in monogamous species.
Simple“Scientists studied why some birds experience a divorce after a failed nesting season.”
In context“In certain species of albatross, environmental stress has been linked to an increased rate of divorce among established breeding pairs.”
Synonymspair bond dissolution - 04 B1 Intermediate
v.to legally end your marriage to someone.
v.to legally dissolve one's marriage; can be used transitively with a spouse as the object or intransitively.
Simple“They divorced last year but remained good friends for the sake of their children.”
In context“He decided to divorce his wife after discovering she had been hiding significant financial debts from him for years.”
PitfallShe divorced with her husband last year. She divorced her husband last year.The verb 'divorce' is transitive when mentioning the spouse; do not use the preposition 'with'.
- 05 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to separate two ideas or subjects so they are no longer linked.
v.to detach or disassociate something from something else, often used in the passive voice.
Simple“You cannot divorce the country's history from its current problems.”
In context“It is impossible to divorce the artist's personal struggles from the dark themes present in his later paintings.”
“Kidman said her second divorce had been a difficult period in her life, adding: “But at the same time I’m like, ‘OK, I didn’t expect this.”
“Image caption, And finally, the Sun splashes the divorce of Eastenders star Shane Richie from his wife Christie.”
Derived from Old French divorce, from Latin dīvortium, from dīvertere (“to turn aside”), from dī- (“apart”) + vertere (“to turn”); see verse.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.