Sample sentences for DIVISIVE - verbalworkout.com

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Definition

causing disagreement and often ill-will between people

The Iraq war was divisive here at home, and has also divided the world community.
Adam B. Schiff

divisive = caused disagreement and ill-will between people

It should be self-evident that a faculty that speaks with unanimity on some of the most divisive issues of the day is not fulfilling its duty.
Declaration Foundation: Restoring America -- http://www.declaration.net/news.asp?docID=4711&y=2005 (retrieved 06/29/06)
One of the most divisive and controversial aspects of the current immigration debate is the proposal for a temporary worker program.
Edwin Meese III and Matthew Spalding -- Permanent Principles and Temporary Workers -- http://www.heritage.org/Research/GovernmentReform/bg1911.cfm?renderforprint=1 (retrieved 06/29/06)
Nationwide, attitudes toward migrants have also proven increasingly divisive.
Joshua Davis -- Spare Parts
"There is no organization in this country as divisive as the new National Party," I declared.
Nelson Mandela -- Long Walk to Freedom
Like Washington and many others, Adams had become increasingly distraught over the rise of political divisiveness, the forming of parties or factions.
David McCullough -- John Adams

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

Tonight was Brown's traditional response to the divisive national or campus issues: a mandatory "outreach" meeting held in all the freshman dorms.
Ron Suskind -- A Hope in the Unseen
It wasn't to unify the rest of the group. in fact, it was divisive.
Orson Scott Card -- Ender's Game
This soon became the most divisive issue of all.
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston -- Farewell to Manzanar
The game: a tricky, divisive Westing game.
Ellen Raskin -- The Westing Game
His social development essentially stalled with his breakdown, which came at a time when race in America was a raw, divisive subject.
Steve Lopez -- The Soloist
This is the divisiveness Lincoln will face if he manages to win the war.
Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard -- Killing Lincoln

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

Our team chose to revive This I Believe precisely to counter the divisiveness, the anger, the prejudice, and to raise a flag for thoughtfulness.
Jay Allison, et al. -- This I Believe II

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

And here at home, the power of the Mafia crime syndicates and the divisiveness of the civil rights movement are two crucial situations requiring immediate attention.
Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard -- Killing Kennedy

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

To be divisive.
Robert A. Heinlein -- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
She had kept her bargains with the officers in her army, promoting them outside their feudal hierarchy, making a new-model army that answered to her and not to the divisive barons.
Megan Whalen Turner -- Queen of Attolia
"; "Banning English Divisive Measure"; "Hot in Any Language"; "Town's Ordinance a Step Backwards"; "Small Town News Can Grow Big and Ugly"; "Texas Town Makes Spanish Official, Stirs War of Words."
Robert MacNeil and William Crane -- Do You Speak American?
"I told her I would release it to the media" because her lie about a black carjacker was causing deep pain among blacks, and he said he owed it to the town to end the racial divisiveness it had caused.
Rick Bragg -- All Over but the Shoutin'

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

They continued celebrating in a festive spirit and singing that the people united would never be defeated—even though each time they sang, it sounded more out of tune because divisiveness and hatred were inexorably growing.
Isabel Allende -- The House of Spirits

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

A Cambodian teenager, kidnapped and sold to a brothel, in the room where she works (Nicholas D. Kristof) One reason the modern abolitionist movement hasn't been more effective is the divisive politics of prostitution.
Nicholas D. Kristof -- Half the Sky

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