Definition of BIFURCATE

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." Yogi’s advice might not offer much help when making tough decisions in life, but perhaps it will help you remember today’s word, bifurcate. A road that bifurcates splits in two like the one in Yogi’s adage. Other things can bifurcate as well, such as an organization that splits into two factions. Bifurcate derives from the Latin bifurcus, meaning "two-pronged," a combination of the prefix bi- ("two") and the noun furca ("fork"). Furca, as you can probably tell, gave us our word fork.

Examples of bifurcate in a Sentence

The stream bifurcated into two narrow winding channels. bifurcate a beam of light

Recent Examples on the Web But the approach has only exacerbated capital outflows, bifurcated the market and widened bid-ask spreads, giving way to erratic price swings. — Donal Griffin, Bloomberg.com, "BNP Paribas Halts New Turkish Lira Trades at Prime-Broker Unit," 24 May 2020 In August 2019, India also bifurcated the state into two union territories: Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. — Riyaz Wani, Quartz India, "India’s new domicile law for Jammu & Kashmir is making residents anxious," 6 Apr. 2020 The world seemed to bifurcate into people who still had jobs (for now) and those who didn’t, with the former anxiously looking for ways to cover for the latter, who were now scrambling for new sources of income, any income. — Emily Witt, The New Yorker, "Performing Artists and the Financial Fallout of the Coronavirus," 22 Mar. 2020 The government has abolished autonomy for and bifurcated the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir as well as passed a citizenship law that critics say discriminates against Muslims. — Sadanand Dhume, WSJ, "Jeff Bezos’ Unhappy Passage to India," 23 Jan. 2020 After the Modi government abrogated Articles 370 and 35A in the state and bifurcated it into two union territories, several political leaders have been under house arrest and there are severe restrictions on civilian movement. — Manavi Kapur, Quartz India, "Modi told Indian-Americans “everything is fine” in India in nine languages. But is it?," 22 Sep. 2019 This is precisely the sort of middle-income job needed in the Bay Area, which like many urban areas is bifurcating into an economy of high-wage knowledge jobs and low-wage service jobs. — Conor Dougherty, New York Times, "California Is Booming. Why Are So Many Californians Unhappy?," 29 Dec. 2019 In Asia’s tech industries there is much talk of the world being divided into two technospheres, one American, one Chinese, with the industry’s supply lines multiplying and bifurcating accordingly. — The Economist, "A look inside the factory around which the modern world turns," 18 Dec. 2019 The result suggests that trade is moving in a similar direction to tech, with the world bifurcating into separate zones as tensions between China and the U.S. force nations to take sides. — David Fickling | Bloomberg, Washington Post, "Asia’s Big Trade Pact Will Hurt the Global Economy," 5 Nov. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bifurcate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.