From Latin 'divortium' (a turning apart) — 'di-' + 'vertere' (to turn). A divorce is two paths diverging.
The legal dissolution of a marriage; a complete separation between two things. As a verb, to legally end a marriage; to separate or dissociate.
From Old French 'divorce,' from Latin 'dīvortium' (a separation, a dissolution of marriage, a parting of ways), from 'dīvertere' (to turn aside, to go in different directions), compounded from 'dī-' / 'dis-' (apart, from PIE *dwis-) + 'vertere' (to turn, from PIE *wert- meaning to turn or wind). The noun 'dīvortium' was used literally of a fork in a road — a place where paths diverge — before acquiring its primary legal sense. Roman law recognised 'dīvortium' as a formal dissolution; it could be initiated by either spouse under Classical Roman law, a permissiveness that later
Roman 'dīvortium' originally meant any separation or fork in the road — a place where paths diverge. The marital sense was just one application. The phrase 'aquārum dīvortium' (a parting of the waters) described a watershed — the geographical ridge where rainwater divides and flows in different directions. The marital and geographical senses share the same beautiful image: a point where what was together turns