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 can write a polynomial dividend as the product of the divisor and the quotient added to the remainder.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 1, 2021

Multiply that coefficient by the divisor and place the result in the second row under the second coefficient.

From Textbooks ● May 6, 2020

Multiply that result by the divisor and place the result in the third row under the third coefficient.

From Textbooks ● May 6, 2020

The Executive is the greatest common divisor of a diverse society.

From Behind the Mirrors The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington by Clinton W. (Clinton Wallace) Gilbert

As is common in number theory, the conjecture deals with prime numbers that exactly divide a given number—what mathematicians call prime divisors.

From Scientific American ● Jul. 28, 2023

Forty-two is also a “practical” number, which means that any integer between 1 and 42 is the sum of a subset of its distinct divisors.

From Scientific American ● Sep. 21, 2020

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

From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015

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

The stipulation as to "no more" was not necessary in the case of my puzzle, for no smaller number has more than sixty-four divisors.

From The Canterbury Puzzles And Other Curious Problems by Henry Ernest Dudeney

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