sunder

US/ˈsʌndɚ/

sunder adjective: sundry; separate; different.

Adjective

sunder (comparative more sunder, superlative most sunder)

(dialectal, obsolete) Sundry; separate; different.

Verb

sunder (third-person singular simple present sunders, present participle sundering, simple past and past participle sundered)

(transitive) To break or separate or to break apart, especially with force.
- Notwithstanding its terrifically wide sweep, (some thirty feet or more,) and the hissing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would accomplish.1842, Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum
- In Taran's hand the sundered bone had turned into gray dust, which he cast aside.1967, Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer
(intransitive) To part, separate.
- Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas: —
  Such are we now.1881 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Severed Selves, lines 8-9
- … Carlo finally saw Everything, before it sunders into things; he saw Knowledge before it sunders into knowing; he saw Integrity before it sunders in integrals; he saw Unity before it sunders into units.2003, Dean Barton, Searching for the Evergreen Man, Llumina Press, →ISBN, page 69
(UK, dated, dialectal, transitive) To expose to the sun and wind.
- Where a fair opportunity offers, and the grass is perfectly dry, the hipples are sundered; that is, broken out into beds in the usual manner, turned, and again got up into cocklets, of such size as the state of dryness requires.1788, William Marshall, The Rural Economy of Yorkshire
- Except under abnormal conditions, protection can be afforded to a field by cutting a strip half a chain in width all round the field, with a reaper and binder for preference, when the crop is in the best condition for hay, and then ploughing or sunder-cutting the stubble.1941, The Queensland Agricultural and Pastoral Handbook, page 82

Noun

sunder (plural sunders)

a separation into parts; a division or severance
- He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
  I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder
  And went with half my life about my ways.1939, Alfred Edward Housman, Additional Poems, VII, lines 2-4

sunder meaning in Urdu and Malayalam

Examples of sunder in a sentence

The ground here was as hard as stone, the dirt and dust dry as bone sundered in the desert scorch.2010, Stony Stern, Run Past The Hunter, page 143:
The world, a good deal of it, sundered, scorched.2013, Thomas Glave, Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh, page 165:

Forms of sunder

Adjective
comparative	more sunder
superlative	most sunder
Verb
third-person singular present	sunders
present participle	sundering
past participle	sundered
past	sundered
Noun
plural	sunders

Past tense of sunder: sundered

Origin of sunder

From Middle English sunder, from Old English sundor- (“separate, different”), from Proto-Germanic *sundraz (“isolated, particular, alone”), from Proto-Indo-European *snter-, *seni-, *senu-, *san- (“apart, without, for oneself”). Cognate with Old Saxon sundar (“particular, special”), Dutch zonder (“without”), German sonder- (“special”), German sondern (“to separate, set apart”), Old Norse sundr (“separate”), Danish sønder (“apart, asunder”), Latin sine (“without”).

From Middle English sundren (“to separate, part, divide”), from Old English sundrian (“to separate, split, part, divide”), from Proto-Germanic *sundrōną (“to separate”), from Proto-Indo-European *sen(e)- (“separate, without”). Cognate with Scots sinder, sunder (“to separate, divide, split up”), Dutch zonderen (“to isolate”), German sondern (“to separate”), Swedish söndra (“to divide”). More at sundry.

Words formed from sunder

Phrases with sunder

sunder trees

Words that rhyme with sunder

2 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sunder

What does sunder mean?: Sunder means sundry; separate; different.
What is sunder in Urdu?: Sunder in Urdu is القط کرنا, قطع کرنا. See Sunder meaning in Urdu.
How do you use sunder in a sentence?: The ground here was as hard as stone, the dirt and dust dry as bone sundered in the desert scorch.
What part of speech is sunder?: Sunder can be an adjective, a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce sunder?: Sunder is pronounced /ˈsʌndɚ/ (US).

Words near sunder in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: sunder (page history and authors); sunder (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sunder (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sunder.wav.

Cite this entry: “sunder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sunder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.