1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. divisive

Find the word definition

What is "divisive"

Crossword clues for divisive

divisive
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
divisive
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
more
▪ But more important, and certainly more divisive, than such occasions was the endlessly controversial and emotionally potent question of precedence.
▪ Reality is more divisive for both nations.
▪ The history they have actually experienced has been much more divisive.
▪ The longer he resists the pressure for change, the more divisive and dangerous will be his efforts to suppress it.
▪ In a post-industrial information economy, the differences become more pronounced and more divisive as the length and necessity of schooling increase.
▪ Ceremonies have been more divisive in character than any other part of ritual or theory.
most
▪ The potentially most divisive argument will be about who should be in charge during the dangerous period ahead.
socially
▪ This dependence upon parental support, though necessary if schools are to survive, is socially divisive.
▪ He believes that unemployment is socially divisive and is leading to the creation of an underclass.
▪ The charge is that exclusive concentration upon the personal can, in its effects, be socially divisive.
■ NOUN
issue
▪ Commentators suggested that the Church's role vis-à-vis the state would become a divisive issue in the expected October elections.
▪ Since Bakke, the Court has continued to be deeply fragmented on this divisive issue.
▪ There is no long-term advantage in avoiding contentious and divisive issues.
▪ The strike became a divisive issue in the community, turning neighbors against neighbors and even relatives against relatives.
▪ The more divisive issue was the old question of an election under united Coalition leadership.
▪ The abortion issue is an even more divisive issue between sisters.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in America.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Among evangelical Christians, Graham is known for avoiding divisive rhetoric.
▪ Anti-debt groups in the South are aware of the divisive effect of selective and exclusionary debt relief proposals.
▪ But more important, and certainly more divisive, than such occasions was the endlessly controversial and emotionally potent question of precedence.
▪ For one to sue another would have been a divisive act not easily tolerated.
▪ The formalization of learning was not only unnecessary and inhibiting, but politically divisive.
▪ The introduction of grant-maintained schools and city technology colleges is without question divisive, leaving local authority schools as poor relations.
▪ With a membership deeply divided in its views, will a politicised curriculum be divisive?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Divisive

Divisive \Di*vi"sive\, a. [Cf. F. divisif.]

  1. Indicating division or distribution.
    --Mede.

  2. Creating, or tending to create, division, separation, or difference.

    It [culture] is after all a dainty and divisive quality, and can not reach to the depths of humanity.
    --J. C. Shairp. -- Di*vi"sive*ly, adv. -- Di*vi"sive*ness, n.
    --Carlyle.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
divisive

c.1600, "having a quality of dividing," from Latin divis-, past participle stem of dividere (see divide (v.)) + -ive. Meaning "producing discord" is from 1640s. Related: Divisively; divisiveness.

Wiktionary
divisive

a. Having a quality that divides or separates

WordNet
divisive

adj. dissenting (especially dissenting with the majority opinion) [syn: dissentious, factious]

Wikipedia
Divisive

Divisive may refer to:

  • divisive clustering, a type of hierarchical clustering
  • divisive rhythm
  • Divide and rule

Usage examples of "divisive".

And, indeed, the majority of individuals in rational societies still settle in somewhere around the mythic-rational, using all the formidable powers of rationality to prop up a particular, divisive, imperialistic mythology and an aggressively fundamentalistic program of systematic intolerance.

He was religious right, Christian conservative, archconservative, far right, mean-spirited, wing nut, and divisive.

And in one of the most difficult of all historical transformations, a universal or global reasonableness began slowly to replace local and divisive mythologies, mythologies that, precisely because they could not be universally argued and supported by shared evidence, could only be supported militarily and imperialistically.

Terrorists and rebels begin training their offspring in class consciousness and divisive hatred at an early age.

No strand in the web is ever aware of the whole web, which is why empirical holism ends up divisive, dualistic, and isolationist.