divide and conquer

English

Etymology

From Latin divide et impera.

Verb

divide and conquer (third-person singular simple present divides and conquers, present participle dividing and conquering, simple past and past participle divided and conquered)

1. To use a combination of political, military and economic strategies that aim to gain and maintain power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy.
   • 2020 December 2, Philip Haigh, “A winter of discontent caused by threat of union action”, in Rail, page 62:

     It added that it can't begin pay talks without permission from Transport Scotland, and then cited a TSSA union survey of ScotRail that suggested that most of its members were against strikes, instead preferring job security rather than a pay rise. This prompted the TSSA to accuse ScotRail of trying to divide and conquer.

Translations

Divide and conquer

• Arabic: فَرِّق تَسُد (farriq tasud)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 分而治之 (zh) (fēn'érzhìzhī)

• Czech: rozděl a panuj
• Danish: del og hersk
• Dutch: divide et impera, deel en heers, verdeel en heers
• Finnish: hajota ja hallitse (fi)
• French: diviser pour mieux régner (fr)
• Georgian: დაყავი და იბატონე (ka) (daq̇avi da ibaṭone)
• German: teile und herrsche
• Greek: διαίρει και βασίλευε (el) (diaírei kai vasíleve)
• Hebrew: הפרד ומשול (he) (hafréd umshól)
• Hungarian: oszd meg és uralkodj (hu)
• Icelandic: deila og drottna
• Italian: dividi e domina
• Japanese: 分割統治 (ぶんかつとうち, bunkatsu-tōchi)
• Korean: 분열시킨 뒤에 정복한다 (bunyeolsikin dwie jeongbokhanda)
• Latin: divide et impera
• Polish: dziel i rządź
• Portuguese: dividir e conquistar
• Russian: разделя́й и вла́ствуй (razdeljáj i vlástvuj)
• Serbo-Croatian: завади па владај (zavadi pa vladaj)
• Slovene: deli in vladaj
• Spanish: divide y conquista, divide y vencerás
• Swedish: söndra och härska

See also

• divide and rule

Noun

divide and conquer (uncountable)

1. A strategy for achieving political or military control.
2. (computer science) An algorithm design technique that solves a problem by splitting it recursively into smaller problems until all of the remaining problems are trivial.

   The quicksort algorithm is an example of divide and conquer.

Proverb

divide and conquer

1. In order to rule securely, do not allow alliances between your enemies.