兩件事被切開、脫節
把婚姻那個畫面整個搬到抽象的兩邊：本來該連在一起、互相對得上的兩件事——理論和實務、法律和民意、藝術和政治——之間出現了徹底的斷裂。用 divorce 而不用 gap，帶的訊息是「這兩邊本來是一對」，所以分開才值得講。
separation of things · noun · B1
A complete separation between two things that are usually connected.
分離；脫節
核心畫面
Picture two people who were legally tied together as husband and wife, and then a court formally turns them apart again — the tie is not just ignored or forgotten, it is officially undone, on paper. That picture of two joined things being turned apart is what the word carries into all its other uses.
可以想成兩個人本來在法律上被綁在一起，是夫妻；後來法院正式把這個結解開，兩邊轉開、各走各的。重點不只是「不住在一起了…更多收起
可以想成兩個人本來在法律上被綁在一起，是夫妻；後來法院正式把這個結解開，兩邊轉開、各走各的。重點不只是「不住在一起了」，而是那條連結被正式、白紙黑字地解除。divorce 其他的用法，一種想法是都從這個「把原本連在一起的兩邊轉開」的畫面長出來的。From the word’s history
From Latin divortium 'separation, dissolution of marriage', from divertere 'to separate, leave one's husband, turn aside'. English borrowed it in the late 14th century. The wider reading — 'complete separation, absolute disjunction' — is already recorded in the early 15th century, so using divorce outside marriage is not a modern stretch: both readings have run side by side for six hundred years.
來自拉丁文 divortium「分離、婚姻的解除」，字根 divertere 是「分開、轉開、離開配偶」。英文在 14 世紀末借進來。而「泛指徹底分開」這個比較寬的讀法，早在 15 世紀初就有紀錄了——所以把 divorce 用在婚姻以外的地方，並不是後來才生出來的比喻，兩種用法並行了六百年。
Online Etymology Dictionary — https://www.etymonline.com/word/divorce
From the picture
讓自己抽身、切斷關係
還是「把兩邊轉開」，只是這次其中一邊就是你自己：你原本在那個團體、那件事情裡面，現在正式退出來，跟它劃清界線。所以這個用法幾乎都帶反身代名詞。
stop being involved · verb · B1
To stop being part of or connected to an activity, group, or situation.
脫離；抽身
Also in this word
end of marriage · noun · B1
The legal ending of a marriage, so that the two people are no longer husband and wife.
離婚
end a marriage · verb · B1
To legally end your marriage to your husband or wife.
離婚
原始詞典資料9 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Divorcename
- 1
The 65th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
divorcenoun/dɪˈvɔːs/
- 1
The legal dissolution of a marriage.
- Kate Merrill: Do you ever regret it, Liz? Liz Frances: The divorce? Not as much as I regret the marriage.
- Richard obtained a divorce from his wife some years ago, but hasn't returned to the dating scene.
- 2
A separation of connected things.
- The Civil War split between Virginia and West Virginia was a divorce based along cultural and economic as well as geographic lines.
- The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes. This divorce of a product from its voyage to us is perhaps the thing that Amazon has sold us most successfully
- 3
biologynatural-scienceszoologyThe separation of a bonded pair of animals.
- 4
obsoleteThat which separates.
- Go with me like good angels to my end; / And as the long divorce of steel falls on me, / Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, / And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, o' God's name.
divorceverb/dɪˈvɔːs/
- 1
To legally dissolve a marriage between two people.
- A ship captain can marry couples, but cannot divorce them.
- As Fire Island’s reputation grew, so did the fame of its residents. In 1977, after divorcing his first wife, Calvin Klein bought one of Gifford’s beachfront homes.
- 2
To end one's own marriage to (a person) in this way.
- Lucy divorced Steve when she discovered that he had been unfaithful.
- 3
To obtain a legal divorce.
- Edna and Simon divorced last year; he got the house, and she retained the business.
- 4
To separate something that was connected.
- The radical group voted to divorce itself from the main faction and start an independent movement.
- He is knight dubb'd with vnhatche'd Rapier, and on carpet conſideration, but he is a diuell in priuate brall, soules and bodies hath he diuorc'd three, and his incenſement at this moment is ſo implacable, that ſatisfaction can be none, but by pangs of death and ſepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giu't or take't.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。