diverting
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of diverting
Explanation
Something that's diverting is a pleasant distraction. A movie on a long bus ride — even a bad movie — is diverting. The adjective diverting describes anything that grabs your attention, especially if it's entertaining and distracts from something less interesting. Spending time with a friend can be diverting when you're waiting to hear important news or get the results of a big test, and a good, diverting book is the perfect thing to take on a boring train commute. Diverting stems from the verb divert, or "distract," from its Latin root, divertere, "to turn in different directions."
Vocabulary lists containing diverting
A Wrinkle in Time
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12 More Interesting Ways to Say "interesting"
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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He is accused of diverting $2 million in public funds to finance his first presidential campaign.
From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026
Doing so would relieve the court of diverting its other resources to these ethics matters or, worse, undervaluing them altogether.
From Slate ● Jul. 15, 2026
Liberal Democrat cabinet member for environmental services, Chris Wiggin, said the event was "diverting textiles from waste by prioritising reuse and recycling instead of being discarded as waste".
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Fery, a virtually unknown British wild card with a triple-digit ranking, has become the emotional heartbeat of Wimbledon while legitimately diverting some national attention from England’s World Cup quest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
By diverting snowmelt from the ever-present Andes icecaps to high farm terraces, Wari was able literally to rise above the drought and flooding of lower elevations.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
