Picture two people who were legally tied together as husband and wife, and then a court formally turns them apart again — the tie is not just ignored or forgotten, it is officially undone, on paper. That picture of two joined things being turned apart is what the word carries into all its other uses.
From the word’s history
From Latin divortium 'separation, dissolution of marriage', from divertere 'to separate, leave one's husband, turn aside'. English borrowed it in the late 14th century. The wider reading — 'complete separation, absolute disjunction' — is already recorded in the early 15th century, so using divorce outside marriage is not a modern stretch: both readings have run side by side for six hundred years.
來自拉丁文 divortium「分離、婚姻的解除」，字根 divertere 是「分開、轉開、離開配偶」。英文在 14 世紀末借進來。而「泛指徹底分開」這個比較寬的讀法，早在 15 世紀初就有紀錄了——所以把 divorce 用在婚姻以外的地方，並不是後來才生出來的比喻，兩種用法並行了六百年。
Online Etymology Dictionary — https://www.etymonline.com/word/divorce
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料9 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Divorcename
- 1
The 65th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
divorcenoun/dɪˈvɔːs/
- 1
The legal dissolution of a marriage.
- Kate Merrill: Do you ever regret it, Liz? Liz Frances: The divorce? Not as much as I regret the marriage.
- Richard obtained a divorce from his wife some years ago, but hasn't returned to the dating scene.
- 2
A separation of connected things.
- The Civil War split between Virginia and West Virginia was a divorce based along cultural and economic as well as geographic lines.
- The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes. This divorce of a product from its voyage to us is perhaps the thing that Amazon has sold us most successfully
- 3
biologynatural-scienceszoologyThe separation of a bonded pair of animals.
- 4
obsoleteThat which separates.
- Go with me like good angels to my end; / And as the long divorce of steel falls on me, / Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, / And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, o' God's name.
divorceverb/dɪˈvɔːs/
- 1
To legally dissolve a marriage between two people.
- A ship captain can marry couples, but cannot divorce them.
- As Fire Island’s reputation grew, so did the fame of its residents. In 1977, after divorcing his first wife, Calvin Klein bought one of Gifford’s beachfront homes.
- 2
To end one's own marriage to (a person) in this way.
- Lucy divorced Steve when she discovered that he had been unfaithful.
- 3
To obtain a legal divorce.
- Edna and Simon divorced last year; he got the house, and she retained the business.
- 4
To separate something that was connected.
- The radical group voted to divorce itself from the main faction and start an independent movement.
- He is knight dubb'd with vnhatche'd Rapier, and on carpet conſideration, but he is a diuell in priuate brall, soules and bodies hath he diuorc'd three, and his incenſement at this moment is ſo implacable, that ſatisfaction can be none, but by pangs of death and ſepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giu't or take't.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。