Division

Taking the ratio  of two numbers  and , also written . Here,  is called the dividend,  is called the divisor, and  is called a quotient. The symbol "/" is called a solidus (sometimes, the "diagonal"), and the symbol "" is called the obelus. If left unevaluated,  is called a fraction, with  known as the numerator and  known as the denominator.

Division in which the fractional (remainder) is discarded is called integer division, and is sometimes denoted using a backslash, .

Division is the inverse operation of multiplication, so that if

then  can be recovered as

as long as . In general, division by zero is not defined since the ability to "invert"  to recover  breaks down if  (in which case  is always 0, independent of ).

Cutting or separating an object into two or more parts is also called division.