divorcer
(dɪˈvɔəsə(r))
[f. as prec. +-er1.]
1. a. One who divorces or puts away in legal form a wife or husband. b. One who or that which divorces or separates husband and wife.
| 1613 Drummond of Hawthornden Cypress Grove (J.), Death is the violent estranger of acquaintance, the eternal divorcer of marriage. 1644 Milton Judgm. Bucer (1851) 318 They think it follows that second marriage is in no case to be permitted either to the Divorcer, or to the Divorced. 1831 Carlyle in Froude Life II. 189 Rutherford sate also within the ring with Dr. Lushington (the divorcer). |
2. fig. One who or that which severs or parts persons or things closely united.
| c 1611 Chapman Iliad xvi. 759 Patroclus..was from his own [life] divorced, And thus his great divorcer braved: [etc.]. 1822 Lamb Elia Ser. i. Distant Corr., Since then the old divorcer [death] has been busy. 1827 Hood Hero & Leander xviii, That cold divorcer will be twixt them still. |