divorce

Universal Words noun, verb noun 1 [U,C] the legal ending of a marriage: The marriage ended in divorce in 1996. * an increase in the divorce rate (= the number of divorces in a year) * They have agreed to get a divorce. * Divorce proceedings (= the legal process of divorce) started today. * Bella wants a divorce. * He remarried after a divorce from his first wife, Kate. * She told him she was filing for divorce. compareSEPARATION 2 [C] (formal) ~ (between A and B) a separation; the ending of a relationship between two things: the divorce between religion and science verb 1 to end your marriage to sb legally: [VN] They're getting divorced. * She's divorcing her husband. * [V] I'd heard they're divorcing. 2 [VN] [oftenpassive] (formal) ~ sb/sth from sth to separate, a person, an idea, a subject, etc. from sth; to keep two things separate: They believed that art should be divorced from politics. * When he was depressed, he felt utterly divorced from reality. noun (AmE) a man whose marriage has been legally ended