diversified

American  

[dih-vur-suh-fahyd, dahy-] / dɪˈvɜr səˌfaɪd, daɪ- /

adjective

1. distinguished by various forms or by a variety of objects.

   diversified activity.

2. distributed among a judicious variety of types; balanced.

   Investments focused in a single industry, such as energy, are more vulnerable to market volatility than more diversified investments.

3. producing different kinds of goods, crops, etc., or expanded so as to do so.

   He owns a diversified farm, raising livestock, produce, and medicinal herbs.

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Other Word Forms

• nondiversified
  adjective
• quasi-diversified
  adjective
• undiversified
  adjective
• well-diversified
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of diversified

First recorded in 1605–15; diversify + -ed ²

Explanation

When something is diversified, it is diverse, meaning varied. If your investments are diversified, it means you have put money in more than one place: real estate, stocks, bonds, race horses, gold, alligator farms, and so on. Diverse comes from a medieval Latin word diversificare, meaning “make dissimilar.” If you have diversified something, you have made its parts different from each other. For example, if you want to make your diet more diversified, you make it a point to eat a wider variety of foods, or at least something beyond just scrambled eggs and macaroni and cheese.

Example Sentences

CEF, the Adams Diversified Equity Fund trades at a 5% discount now, but it has a low fee structure of just 0.5% annually.

From Barron's • Mar. 10, 2026

Berkshire Hathaway purchased Baltimore’s Hochschild-Kohn department store in 1966 — it was sold three years later — through a company called Diversified Retailing that later merged with the conglomerate.

From MarketWatch • Jan. 12, 2026

Major producers have increasingly faced public pushback and regulatory action in response, with Diversified often near the center of criticism because of its business model.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 16, 2025

Diversified operates just a fraction of the wells speckling Appalachia, home to two of America’s most prolific shale formations.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 16, 2025

Jerome's New Version of the Old Testament—Books left untranslated—The Vulgate and its Diversified Character—Remarks on the History of the Vulgate—II.

From Companion to the Bible by Barrows, E. P. (Elijah Porter)

Related Words

• diverse
• varied