divide [ME] English adopted divide from Latin dividere ‘to force apart, remove’ in the Middle Ages. The maxim divide and rule [E17th], recommending that a ruler or government set factions against each other so that they will not unite against the powers that be, is also of Latin origin: divide et impera. People often attribute it to the Renaissance Italian statesman and political philosopher Machiavelli (see machiavellian), but in fact he denounced the principle. Dividend [ME] comes from the same Latin root, and originally meant ‘something to be divided’, while individual [LME] comes from the Latin for ‘not divisible’.