dissever

verb

Etymology: From Middle English disseveren, from Anglo-Norman desevrer, Old French dessevrer, from Vulgar Latin *dissēperō, dissēperāre, from Latin dis- + sēparō.

1. To separate (two or more things); to split apart (something).

   “[T]he ſaid floud of Rubicon diſſeuereth the Galle Ciſalpine from Italie.”

   “The storm so dissevered the company […] that most of them never met again.”

2. To divide (something) into separate parts.

   “If the bridge is destroyed, the shores are dissevered.”

   “When the corn is threshed, the kernel lieth mixed among the chaff, and afterward are they dissevered asunder with the fan or windle; even so the people in the church do first hear the preaching of God's word; now some stumble, repine, and are offended at it, and others are not offended, and yet they dwell together, one with another; but when they are fanned or windled, and when the wind of trouble and affliction beginneth once to blow, then is it easy to sunder and to know the one from the other, the faithful from the unfaithful.”