Divisions

How to spell divisions

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce divisions

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does divisions mean?

1. nounSeparate parts, sections, or groups into which something larger is split.

Divisions in a sentence

• The company reorganised its three regional divisions last spring.

• Deep political divisions made the meeting tense and unproductive.

Where does divisions come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of 'division', which English took from the Latin divisio, a noun built on the verb dividere meaning 'to force apart' or 'to separate'. That verb combines the prefix di- 'apart' with a root tied to the idea of cutting and parting, and it gave Latin the sense of splitting something whole into pieces. English absorbed the word through Old French in the 1300s, first for the act of separating and then for the resulting parts themselves, whether sections of an army, branches of an organisation, or the arithmetic operation. The very same dividere root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'divide', 'individual' (literally something that cannot be divided), and 'device'. The spelling keeps the -sion ending typical of Latin nouns formed on a 'd' or 's' stem, which is the part writers most often have to pause over.

How the word is built

• di- (apart)
• vis (from videre/divisus: to separate, divide)
• -ion (noun suffix)
• -s (plural)