divisor

American  

[dih-vahy-zer] / dɪˈvaɪ zər /

noun

Mathematics.

• divisors
  plural

1. a number by which another number, the dividend, is divided.

2. a number contained in another given number a certain integral number of times, without a remainder.

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divisor British  

/ dɪˈvaɪzə /

noun

1. a number or quantity to be divided into another number or quantity (the dividend)

2. a number that is a factor of another number

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divisor Scientific  

/ dĭ-vī′zər /

1. A number used to divide another. In the equation 15 ÷ 3 = 5, 3 is the divisor.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• divisors
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of divisor

1425–75; late Middle English < Latin dīvīsor, one who divides, equivalent to dīvīd- (variant stem of dīvidere to divide ) + -tor -tor

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Explanation

In math, the number you're dividing by is called the divisor. In the equation 24 ÷ 6 = 4, the divisor is 6. Often math teachers use the word divisor simply to mean any number by which you're dividing another number, whether it divides evenly or leaves a remainder. An alternate definition is "a number that divides into another without a remainder." If you need to find the greatest common divisor of several numbers, you're looking for the largest number that divides evenly, with no remainder, into all of them.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

divisor divisors

But to keep things like stock splits and changes in its component stocks from distorting the Dow, its administrators created something called the Dow divisor.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 16, 2022

We check division by multiplying the quotient by the divisor and adding the remainder.

From Textbooks ● Sep. 23, 2020

To see this more generally, we realize we can check a division problem by multiplying the quotient times the divisor and add the remainder.

From Textbooks ● May 6, 2020

If someone needed to approximate a fraction with a square root in the denominator, it meant doing long division with a five decimal-place divisor.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 22, 2020

If we take the aggregate of the means of subsistence as a dividend, the number of mankind as divisor; then the average share of each is the quotient.

From Principles of Political Economy, Vol. II by Wilhelm Roscher

A prime number is a number that has exactly two distinct divisors: itself and 1.

From Scientific American ● Jul. 15, 2018

In practice divisors, will have degrees less than or equal to the degree of .

From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015

Prime numbers are still divisible by themselves and by 1, of course, but they have no other divisors.

From Scientific American ● May 23, 2013

The videos were each about 10 minutes long and contained two elements: his blackboard-style diagrams—Khan happens to be an excellent sketcher—and his voice-over explaining things like greatest common divisors and equivalent fractions.

From BusinessWeek ● May 19, 2011

Common multiples and least and greatest common divisors had such a way of getting mixed up in her brain, that he felt very sorry for her.

From A Little Girl in Old Boston by Amanda Minnie Douglas

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