Dictionary

dissever en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /dɪˈsɛvə/ (UK)
• /dɪˈsɛvɚ/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English disseveren, from Anglo-Norman desevrer, Old French dessevrer, from Vulgar Latin *dissēperō, dissēperāre, from Latin dis- + sēparō.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To separate (two or more things); to split apart (something).
   • Henchard’s wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
   • They were two cousins, almost like two twins, / Except that from the catalogue of sins / Nature had razed their love—which could not be / But by dissevering their nativity. a. 1823 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “A Fragment”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume IV, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 133:
   • The storm so dissevered the company […] that most of them never met again. a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC:
   • [T]he ſaid floud of Rubicon diſſeuereth the Galle Ciſalpine from Italie. 1564 February, Erasmus, “The Saiynges of Iulius Caesar”, in Nicolas Udall [i.e., Nicholas Udall], transl., Apophthegmes, that is to Saie, Prompte, Quicke, Wittie and Sentẽcious Saiynges, […], London: […] Ihon Kingston, →OCLC, book II, folio 191, verso, paragraph 7:
   • Philosophers, Socrates continues, try to dissever the soul from communion with the body, whereas other people think that life is not worth living for a man who has ‘no sense of pleasure and no part in bodily pleasure’. 1946, Bertrand Russell, chapter I, in History of Western Philosophy […], London: George Allen and Unwin, →OCLC, page 16:
2. (transitive) To divide (something) into separate parts.
   • If the bridge is destroyed, the shores are dissevered.
   • When the corn is threshed, the kernel lieth mixed among the chaff, and afterward are they dissevered asunder with the fan or windle; even so the people in the church do first hear the preaching of God's word; now some stumble, repine, and are offended at it, and others are not offended, and yet they dwell together, one with another; but when they are fanned or windled, and when the wind of trouble and affliction beginneth once to blow, then is it easy to sunder and to know the one from the other, the faithful from the unfaithful. 1844, George Miles Coverdale, Writings and Translations of Myles Coverdale:

Forms

Deriveds

undissevered

Relateds

sever