device

device
\ \ [13] A device is something which has been devised – which, etymologically speaking, amounts to ‘something which has been divided’.
\ \ For ultimately devise and divide come from the same source. The noun device comes in the first instance from Old French devisdivision, contrivance’ and latterly (in the 15th century) from Old French deviseplan’, both of which were derivatives of the verb deviserdivide, devise’ (source of English devise [13]). This in turn came from Vulgar Latin *dīvisāre, a verb based on the past participial stem of Latin dīvidere, source of English divide. The semantic development by which ‘divide’ passed to ‘contrive’, presumably based on the notion that dividing something up and distributing it needs some planning, happened before the word reached English, and English device has never meant ‘division’. The sense ‘simple machine’ essentially evolved in the 16th century.
\ \ Cf.DEVISE, DIVIDE, INDIVIDUAL, WIDOW

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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