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
Sean Stein Smith, Forbes.com, 30 May 2025
And most crucially, perhaps, was my nose: bare, no longer horizontally bifurcated by a ridge of black acetate.
—Alice Gregory, Vogue, 4 June 2025
As the anniversary approaches, the rights of LGBTQ+ couples feel bifurcated.
—Melanie Stetson Freeman, Christian Science Monitor, 8 May 2025
That edge is somewhat novel in Star Wars’s universe of smugglers, which typically feels bifurcated between scoundrels with a heart of gold and petty criminals who are rarely more than their base nature.
—Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 22 Apr. 2025
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 Jul. 2025.
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bifurcate
intransitive verb
bī-ˈfər-
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