Definition of SUNDER

Choose the Right Synonym for sunder

separate, part, divide, sever, sunder, divorce mean to become or cause to become disunited or disjointed. separate may imply any of several causes such as dispersion, removal of one from others, or presence of an intervening thing. separated her personal life from her career part implies the separating of things or persons in close union or association. vowed never to part divide implies separating into pieces or sections by cutting or breaking. civil war divided the nation sever implies violence especially in the removal of a part or member. a severed limb sunder suggests violent rending or wrenching apart. a city sundered by racial conflict divorce implies separating two things that commonly interact and belong together. cannot divorce scientific research from moral responsibility

Examples of sunder in a Sentence

a family sundered by scandal during the cold war East and West Berlin were sundered by an impenetrable wall

Recent Examples on the Web

The minds of many viewers will immediately drift away from the fictional narrative and toward the actual events of recent weeks, along the same boundary, where children have been sundered from their immigrant parents and housed in detention centers. — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, "The Borderland Brutality of “Sicario 2: Soldado”," 9 July 2017 About one-fifth of the core structural columns in each tower were sundered by the planes. — New York Times, "The Last 9/11 Fire Chief Bows Out," 10 July 2018 Alanoud Aljalahma, a 22-year-old premedical student, recounts how the rift between the Gulf’s royal clans threatened to sunder her own family. — The Economist, "Cold war in the heatWhy Gulf countries are feuding with Qatar," 21 June 2018 No matter what happens in the legal fight, the relationship between Ms. Redstone and Mr. Moonves—until recently characterized by friendly lunches and public statements of support—has likely been irrevocably sundered. — Joe Flint, WSJ, "Once Allies, Two Media Chiefs Go to War Over the Future of CBS," 28 May 2018 When the French officer Alfred Dreyfus was accused of treason in 1894, public opinion was sundered in half. — Jeet Heer, The New Republic, "Is Kanye West “the Ezra Pound of Rap”?," 30 Apr. 2018 And Melanie Field movingly reveals the conflict her character, Laura, experiences in falling in love with a man who is unbelievably great yet who can’t help sundering her from her gay significant other. — Charles Mcnulty, latimes.com, "Say 'I do' to 'Significant Other,' the rare romantic comedy with depth to match the laughs," 13 Apr. 2018 Hundreds of students languish at home, still out of school weeks after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in coastal Texas, sundering even sturdy school buildings. — Moriah Balingit, Washington Post, "Students in towns hardest hit by Harvey are still in the eye of the storm," 18 Sep. 2017 Any move to sunder diplomatic relations again would recreate a long-standing irritant for the region. — The Economist, "BelloDeciphering Donald Trump’s thinking on Latin America," 5 Oct. 2017

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