Learn English – Can we say “He divorced” instead of “He got divorced”

word-usage

I know that if the subject consists of a couple that got divorced, we don't have to use the word "got", so we can say "John and Jennifer divorced", "His parents divorced", "They divorced" etc. This is an example of it from the Cambridge dictionary: "My parents separated when I was six and divorced a couple of years later." I have seen examples of it in other dictionaries as well.

So, my question is, can we also say

  • "He divorced."
    "My sister divorced last year."
    "John needs to divorce."
    "Just divorce."
    "He might regret it if he divorces." etc.

to mean "He got divorced.", "My sister got divorced last year.", "John needs to get divorced.", "Just get divorced.", "He might regret it if he gets divorced." etc? These sentences have only one person as the subbject as you can see, and in these kind of cases, "get divorced" sounds more familiar to me than "divorce".

Best Answer

They have to be 2 persons (a husband and his wife) to be divorced, so the plural

  • they divorced, John and Mary divorced, etc.

is fine, but

  • he / she divorced, John divorced

without mentioning the other person (the spouse) in incorrect. So use

  • he divorced her, John divorced Mary, etc.

instead.

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