Definition of "fractionate" [frac•tion•ate]

• To divide or separate into parts; break up: "In the post-Watergate era, power has been fractionated on Capitol Hill” ( Evan Thomas). (verb-transitive)
• To separate (a chemical compound) into components, as by distillation or crystallization. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "You could sort of say that this is a very energized version of the conservative side of the Republican Party, or you can see it that this could be something that could just fractionate the Republican Party, tear it into fiscal Republicans and social Republicans, and whatever there is left of old mainline Republicans."
• "Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), one of the first American professors of science to fractionate petroleum by distillation (1854)."
• "In the long term, Iraq will fractionate, much as the Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia did."