divisor
noun
Simple meaning
The number by which a dividend is divided.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihvyzerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈvaɪzɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An integer that divides another integer an integral number of times, the former being called a divisor of the latter.
arithmetic
The number by which a dividend is divided
arithmetic
In an expression involving division, the number by which another number is being divided.
algebramore generally
A ring element which can be multiplied (by some other ring element) to yield a third ring element, the first being called a divisor of the third. If the ring is noncommutative, then one specifies whether a divisor is left, right, or two-sided.
on a variety (or integral locally Noetherian scheme
) A Weil divisor: an element of the free abelian group on the codimension-1 subvarieties (or subschemes).
on a variety (or integral Noetherian scheme
) A Cartier divisor; see Cartier divisors on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An integer that divides another integer an integral number of times, the former being called a divisor of the latter.
Used this way, divisor is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a mathematical use: it is defined precisely and belongs to working with figures and calculations rather than to ordinary conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Mathematics
- Geometry
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Capable of being or liable to be divided or separated.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An integer that divides two (or more) other integers evenly.
The largest integer that divides without remainder into a set of integers.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- denominatornoun
- polynomialnoun
- integernoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.