divide and conquer

English

Wikipedia

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. 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.
2. (as imperative, proverb) In order to rule securely, don't allow alliances of your enemies.

See also

• divide and rule

Translations

Divide and conquer

• Arabic: فرق تسد (ar) (fárriq tásud)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 分而治之 (cmn) (fēn'érzhìzhī)

• Czech: rozděl a panuj (cs)
• Danish: del og hersk (da)
• Dutch: divide et impera (nl), deel en heers (nl), verdeel en heers (nl)
• Finnish: hajota ja hallitse (fi)
• French: diviser pour mieux regner (fr), diviser pour régner (fr)
• Georgian: დაყავი და იბატონე (ka) (daqavi da ibatone)
• German: teile und herrsche (de)
• Greek: διαίρει και βασίλευε (el) (diaírei kai vasíleve)
• Hebrew: הפרד ומשול (he)

• Hungarian: oszd meg és uralkodj (hu)
• Icelandic: deila og drottna (is)
• Italian: dividi e domina (it)
• Japanese: 分割統治 (ja) (ぶんかつとうち, bunkatsu-tōchi)
• Korean: 분열시킨 뒤에 정복한다 (ko)
• Latin: divide et impera (la)
• Polish: dziel i rządź (pl)
• Russian: разделяй и властвуй (ru) (razdeljáj i vlástvuj) 
• Serbo-Croatian: завади па владај (sh) (zavadi pa vladaj)
• Slovene: deli in vladaj (sl)
• Spanish: divide y conquista (es), divide y vencerás (es)
• Swedish: söndra och härska (sv)

Noun

divide and conquer (this singular form only)

1. A strategy for achieving political or military control.
2. (computing) An algorithm design technique applied to various algorithms, such as quicksort, that solve a problem by splitting it recursively into smaller problems until all of the remaining problems are trivial.