Bifurcation vs. Dichotomy — What's the Difference?

To divide into two parts or branches.

A dichotomy is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets). In other words, this couple of parts must be jointly exhaustive: everything must belong to one part or the other, and mutually exclusive: nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts.Such a partition is also frequently called a bipartition.

To separate into two parts or branches; fork.

A division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different

Forked or divided into two parts or branches, as the Y-shaped styles of certain flowers.

Repeated branching into two equal parts.

(biology) A division into two branches.

A division into two contrasting parts or categories

(by extension) Any place where one thing divides into two.

(Astronomy) The phase of the moon, Mercury, or Venus when half of the disk is illuminated.

The act of bifurcating; branching or dividing in two.

(Botany) Branching characterized by successive forking into two approximately equal divisions.

Either of the forks or other branches resultant from such a division.

A separation or division into two; a distinction that results in such a division.

(geography) A place where two roads, tributaries etc. part or meet.

Such a division involving apparently incompatible or opposite principles; a duality.

(nautical) The point where a channel divides when proceeding from seaward.

(logic) The division of a class into two disjoint subclasses that are together comprehensive, as the division of man into white and not white.

(mathematics) The change in the qualitative or topological structure of a given family as described by bifurcation theory.

The division of a genus into two species; a division into two subordinate parts.

(computer science) A command that executes one block or other of commands depending on the result of a condition.

(astronomy) A phase of the moon when it appears half lit and half dark, as at the quadratures.

A forking, or division into two branches.

(botany) Division and subdivision; bifurcation, as of a stem of a plant or a vein of the body into two parts as it proceeds from its origin; often successive.

A bifurcating branch (one or both of them)

A cutting in two; a division.

The place where something divides into two branches

Division or distribution of genera into two species; division into two subordinate parts.

The act of splitting into two branches

That phase of the moon in which it appears bisected, or shows only half its disk, as at the quadratures.

Successive division and subdivision, as of a stem of a plant or a vein of the body, into two parts as it proceeds from its origin; successive bifurcation.

The place where a stem or vein is forked.

Division into two; especially, the division of a class into two subclasses opposed to each other by contradiction, as the division of the term man into white and not white.

Being twofold; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses;