Factionalizing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act or process of dividing a group into smaller, often conflicting, subgroups or parties; creating divisions among members based on differing interests or opinions; causing a collective to become fragmented due to internal disagreements
2. The process of forming distinct subunits within a larger organization by promoting loyalty to particular leaders or ideologies; fostering rivalry or opposition between these segments; encouraging internal strife that breaks the unity of the whole
3. Creating separate factions within a community or organization through the promotion of competing goals or beliefs; instigating division and discord among members; splitting a collective entity into multiple polarized parts

Etymology: Factionalizing is built from "faction", which came into English in the 1500s from French "faction", itself from Latin "factio", meaning a making or a party, from "facere", to make or do. The original sense of "faction" was a group acting together, and the notion of quarrelling sub-groups came later. The verb takes its shape from "factional", an adjective formed by adding the suffix "-al" to "faction", and then "-ize", a suffix whose ancestry runs back through Late Latin and Greek "-izein", which turns a noun or adjective into a verb meaning to make or treat in a certain way. So "factionalize" means to make something into factions. Put together, the present participle describes the process unfolding: a group is being split into rival camps, one act of stirring up competing loyalties at a time. The word's history is therefore a chain of suffixes stacked onto an old idea of making and doing.

Synonyms: dividing, splitting, polarizing, sectarianizing

Antonyms: uniting, harmonizing, integrating