divisive

From dīvīs-, past-participle stem of Latin dīvidere (“to divide”) +‎ -ive.[1]

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈvaɪsɪv/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /dɪˈvaɪsɪv/, /dɪˈvɪsɪv/, /dɪˈvɪzɪv/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪsɪv

divisive (comparative more divisive, superlative most divisive)

1. Having a quality that divides or separates.

   Synonym: disunifying

   Antonym: unifying

   Rather than fostering unity, he becomes divisive.

   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, chapter 6, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk), page 66:

     [W]hat a change has introduced itself everywhere into human affairs! [...] all is grown acrid, divisive, threatening dissolution; [...]

• combinative
• agglomerative

• divisively
• divisiveness