bifurcate
verb
bī-ˈfər-
Did you know?
Yogi Berra, the baseball great who was noted for his head-scratching quotes, is purported to have said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Berra's advice might not offer much help when you're making tough decisions in life, but perhaps it will help you remember bifurcate. A road that bifurcates splits in two, like the one in Berra's adage. Other things can bifurcate (or be bifurcated) as well, such as an organization that splits, or is split, into two factions. Bifurcate comes from the Latin adjective bifurcus, meaning "two-pronged," a combination of the prefix bi- ("two") and the noun furca ("fork"). Furca, as you may have guessed, is also an ancestor of fork, which refers to the handy utensil that can (in a pinch) help us—as Berra might say—to cut our pizza in four pieces when we're not hungry enough to eat six.
Examples of bifurcate in a Sentence
Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 18 Feb. 2025
Lake Avenue, which bifurcates the two into east and west, had historically been a de facto segregation line preventing families of color from purchasing properties east of Lake Avenue.
—Jireh Deng, NPR, 8 Feb. 2025
No one embodies the idea better this season than Helly, bifurcated into her ferociously brave workplace self and her repellently uncaring outie, even as the two occasionally share the same impulses.
—Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 17 Jan. 2025
In 2019, their divorce was bifurcated — both Jolie and Pitt were declared legally single even though the rest of the issues, like custody, were not yet settled.
—Eric Andersson, People.com, 31 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for bifurcate
Cite this Entry
“Bifurcate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bifurcate. Accessed 3 Mar. 2025.
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bifurcate
intransitive verb
bī-ˈfər-
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