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• divorce
  divorce

  noun

  the act of legally ending a marriage.
• divorcé
  divorcé

  noun

  a divorced man.

divorce

¹ American  

[dih-vawrs] / dɪˈvɔrs /

noun

divorces plural

1. the act of legally ending a marriage.

   After the divorce, they shared custody of the children.

2. any formal separation of spouses according to established custom.

3. the act of legally ending a formal contract before its term is up, especially in professional sports.

   If there’s a personality clash between the player and the manager, divorce may be the only way out.

   It’s a guide to corporate divorce, laying out who pays what to whom at the early termination of a contract.

4. a total separation between two things; disunion.

   Activists denounced the divorce between thought and action when it came to protecting human rights.

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verb (used with object)

divorced, divorcing

1. to legally end the marriage contract between oneself and (one's spouse).

   She divorced her husband.

2. to permanently separate (a couple) through a judicial declaration that ends their marriage contract.

   The judge divorced the couple.

3. to separate or cut off.

   His view of the situation has become totally divorced from reality.

   Synonyms:

   disjoin, detach, sever, disconnect, divide, dissociate, rupture, disjunction, dissolution, breakup, annulment

verb (used without object)

divorced, divorcing

1. to legally end one’s marriage.

   After 16 years together, they divorced.

   I never thought about money till I divorced.

divorcé ² American  

[dih-vawr-sey, -vohr-, -vawr-sey, -vohr-] / dɪ vɔrˈseɪ, -voʊr-, -ˈvɔr seɪ, -ˈvoʊr- /

noun

1. a divorced man.

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divorce ¹ British  

/ dɪˈvɔːs /

noun

1. the dissolution of a marriage by judgment of a court or by accepted custom

2. a judicial decree declaring a marriage to be dissolved

3. a separation, esp one that is total or complete

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verb

1. to separate or be separated by divorce; give or obtain a divorce (to a couple or from one's spouse)

2. (tr) to remove or separate, esp completely

divorcé ² British  

/ dɪˈvɔːseɪ /

noun

1. a man who has been divorced

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Gender

See fiancée.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• divorcer
  noun
• divorceable
  adjective
• divorcive
  adjective
• nondivorced
  adjective
• undivorceable
  adjective
• undivorced
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• divorces
  plural

Etymology

Origin of divorce¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin dīvortium “separation,” from dīvort(ere) variant of dīvertere “to turn away” ( see divert) + -ium -ium

Origin of divorcé²

First recorded in 1805–15; from French, noun use of masculine past participle of divorcer, from Medieval Latin dīvortiāre “to divorce,” derivative of Latin dīvortium “separation”; see divorce

Explanation

A divorce is a formal ending of a marriage. It’s more permanent than a separation and involves a legal process. If you get a divorce, that means the marriage is officially over. Divorce has both a noun and a verb form. The noun describes the thing you get — "you are getting a divorce." And the verb describes the thing you do — "you are divorcing your spouse." Divorce can also be used more broadly to describe any major separation. You might know of a politician who divorces himself from a controversial issue — that means he doesn’t want to be associated with it at all.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

divorce divorcé divorces divorced divorcing

He said he’d led a charmed life until his 40s, when a divorce unsettled his sense of having cruised along on luck, intelligence and hard work.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

Election lawyers told the newsrooms that it is unlikely Paxton could make such an argument given his ongoing public and acrimonious divorce.

From Salon ● Jul. 28, 2026

Dave, 45, admits it's unromantic but says, given the statistics around divorce, he wants to be pragmatic.

From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026

They also welcomed a child together, Chaz Bono, who was born Chastity Sun, before their divorce in 1975.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026

But that Hudson went away when his parents’ divorce was finalized on April 1 after twenty years of marriage.

From "What If It's Us" by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

And there’s the leering, preening Rupert Mannion from “Ted Lasso” — multimillionaire soccer team owner, inveterate philanderer and incurably vindictive divorcé.

From Salon ● Jun. 12, 2026

The acclaimed “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” adapted by Taffy Brodesser-Akner from her bestselling 2019 novel, is ostensibly about this Manhattan divorcé and struggling single father, played by Jesse Eisenberg.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2023

The 66-year-old divorcé had just started seeing someone.

From Washington Post ● May 1, 2023

Stepan, an outgoing 41-year-old divorcé with a pet hedgehog, posted photos of oxygen cylinders and explained that he had three in his apartment.

From New York Times ● Mar. 30, 2022

He gave her rapidly a sketch of the life and antecedents of Lord Donald of Dunoon—gambler, wastrel, divorcé, et cetera, speaking quite frankly, almost as he would have spoken to a man.

From Helena by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

I think a lot of us feel like we grew up with Hilary, so all of her music resonated with us then, and now, now that we’re older, through relationships or divorces or motherhood.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026

Both stars finalised divorces from their former partners during their time together.

From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026

Many painted a picture of "destroyed" lives: divorces, losing custody of their children, prison, psychiatric hospitals, and astronomical medical bills in the hope of regaining "a normal, meaningful life."

From Barron's ● Apr. 29, 2026

“Having gone through two divorces herself,” her law firm’s webpage bio reads, “Dana feels she brings a special nuance to her family law cases.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026

O’Neill listened carefully while I went through Jesse’s story: his family’s involvement in a religious cult when he was young, the three divorces he’d lived through, his father’s illness.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz

After the affair, Rippey and Tourk divorced but continued to co-parent their son, who is now an adult.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

Her childhood had been chaotic after her parents divorced when she was a toddler, she says, but she didn’t view it as so extreme.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Hannah's parents divorced when she was a toddler and she hasn't had much of a relationship with her dad since.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

A whole new genre of celebrity divorce: Slate’s Scaachi Koul considers how Bunnie Xo, an archetypical “Cool Girl,” seems to have masterminded a new strategy for getting divorced in the public eye.

From Slate ● Jul. 16, 2026

“But he hasn’t done it yet, has he? He hasn’t divorced her?”

From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall

But divorcing a film like this from the times in which we’re absorbing it is short of impossible, no matter how much of an escape it provides for 109 minutes.

From Salon ● May 17, 2026

The story I co-wrote with Dalvin was about the unexpected possessions that divorcing couples clash over.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026

The pair announced their separation in 2024, with a spokesperson saying "their marriage is over and they are in the process of divorcing".

From BBC ● Apr. 12, 2026

Just over a year later, it was revealed that Foster and her husband, Ted Griffin, were also divorcing, around three months before she and Jackman finally confirmed their romance.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 6, 2026

"When your mother said that she was divorcing your father and wanted to move to New York where she grew up, my grandmother set things up with Dr. Gershom."

From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg

Related Words

• annulment
• breakup
• dissolution
• separation
• split