divorce vs severance

divorce

noun
  • A separation of connected things. 

  • The legal dissolution of a marriage. 

  • The separation of a bonded pair of animals. 

verb
  • To legally dissolve a marriage between two people. 

  • To end one's own marriage to (a person) in this way. 

  • To separate something that was connected. 

  • To obtain a legal divorce. 

severance

noun
  • A separation. 

  • The act of severing or the state of being severed. 

  • A severance payment. 

How often have the words divorce and severance occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )