Etymology: < Old French devise, devis (in same sense) < Romanic devīso , devīsa , for Latin dīvīsus , and (late) dīvīsa , from participial stem of dīvidĕre to divide, distribute, apportion, also, in medieval Latin, = disponere testamento , to dispose by will. In medieval Latin, dīvīsa was in common use = dīvīsio , originally ‘division of goods by testament’, ‘whence also the testament itself is called dīvīsa [and dīvīsio ]’ (Du Cange). The same word as device n., and formerly also sometimes spelt device; the eventual victory of the form devise may be partly due to the influence of the medieval Latin dīvīsa in wills, but is probably more owing to the influence of the verb, and the close association of the noun with it in this special sense.

Etymology: < Old French deviser to divide, etc. = Provençal devizar , Old Spanish devisar , Italian divisare < late popular Latin *dīvīsāre , frequentative of dividĕre to divide v., which by dissimilation became devisare in Romanic. The sense-development was far advanced before the word was taken into English; Old French had the senses, ‘to divide, distribute, dispose in portions, arrange, array, dispose of, digest, order, form a plan or design, invent, contrive, express or make known one's plan or will’, whence in later use, ‘to confer, discourse, commune, talk, chat’, the last the chief sense in modern French. Italian divisare has in Florio, 1611, the senses ‘to deuise, to invent; also, to deuide or part a sunder; to discource, to talke or confer together; to blazon armes; also, to surmise, to thinke, to seeme vnto’.