Dic: Synonyms: separate, divide, part, sever, sunder, divorce

These verbs mean to become or cause to become parted, disconnected, or disunited.

• Separate applies both to putting apart and to keeping apart:
  … "In the darkness and confusion, the bands of these commanders became separated from each other" (Washington Irving).
  
  
• Divide implies separation by or as if by cutting or splitting into parts or shares; the term often refers to separation into opposing or hostile groups:
  … We divided the orange into segments.
  … "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free" (Abraham Lincoln).
  
  
• Part refers most often to the separation of closely associated persons or things:
  … "Because ... nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us" (Emily Brontë).
  
  
• Sever usually implies abruptness and force:
  … "His head was nearly severed from his body" (H.G. Wells).
  
  
• Sunder stresses violent tearing or wrenching apart:
  … The country was sundered by civil war.
  
  
• Divorce implies complete separation:
  … "a priest and a soldier, two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the kind and homely ties of life" (Robert Louis Stevenson).

.... The American Heritage