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The vest in divest is a close relation of the kind found in closets—its origin is Latin vestis meaning “clothing, garment.” (Vest has the same source and first appeared in English as a verb in the 15th century meaning “to put on garments or vestments.”) Divest today mostly appears in legal and business contexts about a formal removal or loss of something of value; assets that are divested are sold or given away; someone divested of a right officially loses that right. The word’s first late 16th century use, however, was more intimately related to its roots: divest was then used to mean “to undress or strip especially of clothing, ornament, or equipment.” But broader application of divest soon followed. In Shakespeare’s Henry V, the French King Charles is told via messenger that England’s King Henry “wills you, in the name of God Almighty, / That you divest yourself, and lay apart / ... the crown / And all wide-stretched honours that pertain ...”
Examples of divest in a Sentence
Claire Thornton, USA TODAY, 24 Apr. 2024
The events at Columbia also rippled to Yale, where students gathered at Beinecke Plaza in New Haven, Conn., for days to demand that the university divest from arms manufacturers.
—Alan Blinder, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2024
Part of the aid package included a ban on TikTok in the United States unless the social media app is divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
—Jeremy Childs, Rolling Stone, 20 Apr. 2024
The drive for TikTok to divest from its Chinese owner stems from the fear of US lawmakers and intelligence officials that China could access user information through the app or exert influence over Americans who spend hours on it each day.
—Lauren Feiner, The Verge, 18 Apr. 2024
Advertisement For months, pro-Palestinian activists have called on administrators to divest college endowment funds from corporations tied to Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip and the occupation of the West Bank.
—Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2024
Business Illumina will divest Grail after losing battle with FTC.
—Natallie Rocha, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Apr. 2024
The town hall was held by the Rutgers University Student Assembly regarding two boycott, divestment and sanctions referendums on severing ties with Tel Aviv University and divesting any connections to Israel.
—Emma Colton, Fox News, 7 Apr. 2024
This might include preventing those firms from acquiring interests in U.S. companies or making the firms divest themselves of existing holdings.
—Alden Abbott, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'divest.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near divest
Cite this Entry
“Divest.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/divest. Accessed 27 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
divest
verb
Legal Definition
divest
transitive verb
Anglo-French devestir, literally, to undress, from Old French desvestir, from de(s)-, prefix marking reversal + vestir to dress, from Latin vestire
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