divarication

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The Word of the Day for June 14 is: 

divarication   \dye-vair-uh-KAY-shun\   noun
     1 : the action, process, or fact of spreading apart 
    *2 : a divergence of opinion

Example sentence:
     A divarication arose over how to handle next year's themed party, with one 
faction arguing for a Hawaiian luau and another proposing a 1950s sock hop.

Did you know?
     There's no reason to prevaricate about the origins of "divarication" -- 
the word derives from the Medieval Latin "divaricatio," which in turn descends 
from the verb "divaricare," meaning "to spread apart." "Divaricare" itself is 
derived from the Latin "varicare," which means "to straddle" and is also an 
ancestor of "prevaricate" ("to deviate from the truth"). The oldest sense of 
"divarication," which first appeared in print in English in 1578, refers to a 
literal branching apart (as in "divarication of the roads"). The word 
eventually developed a more metaphorical second sense that is used when 
opinions "stretch apart" from one another.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.




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