divestiture

American  

[dih-ves-ti-cher, -choor, dahy-] / dɪˈvɛs tɪ tʃər, -ˌtʃʊər, daɪ- /

Also divestment

noun

1. the act of divesting.

2. the state of being divested.

3. something, as property or investments, that has been divested.

   to reexamine the company's acquisitions and divestitures.

4. Also divesture the sale of business holdings or part of a company, especially under legal compulsion.

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divestiture Cultural  

1. The act of a corporation or conglomerate in getting rid of a subsidiary company or division. In a tactic to pressure South Africa to end apartheid, during the 1980s many Americans and Europeans urged divestiture on corporations doing business in South Africa.

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Etymology

Origin of divestiture

First recorded in 1595–1605; di- ² + (in)vestiture

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Explanation

Divestiture is the act of getting rid of something. In business, companies sometimes use divestiture to scale down and save money, by selling off assets. If a corporation owns smaller companies that make snack food, clothing, and roller skates, it may decide it's time to save some money through divestiture. Unfortunately, that probably means selling off the roller skate company. To sell or otherwise rid yourself of something is to divest, which comes from a French word meaning "strip of possessions" or "strip of clothing," and the Latin root vestire, "to clothe."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

divestiture

Ariel, which has a 5.4% stake in Mattel, said the stock was undervalued and that Mattel should consider a divestiture, merger or outright sale.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026

Sales fell a sharp 19%, to $790.2 million, after the prior-year launch of Nintendo Switch 2, planned store closures, and the divestiture of the company’s France operations, GameStop said.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 9, 2026

Sales fell sharply, by 19% to $790.2 million, after the prior-year launch of Nintendo Switch 2, planned store closures, and the divestiture of the company’s France operations, GameStop said.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 9, 2026

A federal judge ordered an end to practices that depress ad rates for web publishers, but declined to order a divestiture of Google’s ad exchange and other technology.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

So near is exile to home, misery to divine commiseration--so near are pain and death, desolation and divestiture, to "a new creature," and to the kinship involved in all creation and re-creation.

From Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 1 by Lucia Isabella Gilbert Runkle

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Related Words

• disinvestment
• divestment

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