British
colonies for any high ridge between two valleys, forming a
water-parting; a dividing range. For special senses of the verb "to
divide" (Lat. _di-videre_, the latter part of the word coming from a
root seen in Lat. _vidua_, Eng. "widow"), meaning generally to split up
in two or more parts, see DIVISION. In a parliamentary sense, to divide
(involving a separation into two sides, Aye and No) is to take the sense
of the House by voting on the subject before it.

DIVIDEND (Lat. _dividendum_, a thing to be divided), the net profit
periodically divisible among the proprietors of a joint-stock company in
proportion to their respective holdings of its capital. Dividend is not
interest, although the word dividend is frequently applied to payments
of interest; and a failure to pay dividends to shareholders does not,
like a failure to pay interest on borrowed money, lay a company open to
being declared bankrupt. In bankruptcy a dividend is the proportionate
share of the proceeds of the debtor's estate received by a creditor. In
England, the Companies Act 1862 provided that no dividend should be
payable except out of the profits arising from the business of the
company, but, in the case of companies incorporated by special act of
parliament for the construction of railways and other public works which
cannot be completed for a considerable time, it is sometimes provided
that interest may during construction be paid to the subscribers for
shares out of capital. Dividends (excluding occasional distributions in
the form of shares) are ordinarily payable in cash. Most companies
divide their capital into at least two classes, called "preference"
shares and "ordinary" shares, of which the former are entitled out of
the profits of the company to a preferential dividend at a fixed rate,
and the latter to whatever remains after payment of the preferential
dividend and any fixed charges. Before, however, a dividend is paid, a
part of the profits is often carried to a "reserve fund." The dividend
on preference shares is either "cumulative" or contingent on the profits
of each separate year or half year. When cumulative, if the profits of
any one year are insufficient to pay it in full, the deficiency has to
be made good out of subsequent profits. A cumulative preferential
dividend is sometimes said to be "guaranteed," and preferential
dividends payable by all English companies registered under the
Companies Acts 1862 to 1908 are