divine
Americanadjective
-
of or relating to a god, especially the Supreme Being.
-
addressed, appropriated, or devoted to God or a god; religious; sacred.
divine worship.
-
proceeding from God or a god.
divine laws;
divine guidance.
-
godlike; characteristic of or befitting a deity.
divine magnanimity.
-
the divine kingdom.
-
extremely good; unusually lovely.
He has the most divine tenor voice.
-
being a god; being God.
Zeus, Hera, and other divine beings in Greek mythology.
-
of superhuman or surpassing excellence.
Beauty is divine.
-
Obsolete. of or relating to divinity or theology.
noun
-
divines
plural
-
a theologian; scholar in religion.
-
a priest or member of the clergy.
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the Divine,
-
God.
-
(sometimes lowercase) the spiritual aspect of humans; the group of attributes and qualities of humankind regarded as godly or godlike.
-
verb (used with object)
-
divines,
present (3rd person singular)
-
divined,
past participle, past
-
divining
present participle
-
to discover or declare (something obscure or in the future) by divination; prophesy.
-
to discover (water, metal, etc.) by means of a divining rod.
-
to perceive by intuition or insight; conjecture.
She divined personal details about her customers based on their clothing and accents.
It was not difficult to divine his true intent.
- Synonyms:
- understand, discern
-
Archaic. to portend.
verb (used without object)
-
divines,
present (3rd person singular)
-
divined,
past participle, past
-
divining
present participle
-
to use or practice divination; prophesy.
-
to have perception by intuition or insight; conjecture.
- Synonyms:
- understand, discern
adjective
-
of, relating to, or characterizing God or a deity
-
godlike
-
of, relating to, or associated with religion or worship
the divine liturgy
-
of supreme excellence or worth
-
informal splendid; perfect
noun
-
(often capital) another term for God
-
a priest, esp one learned in theology
verb
-
to perceive or understand (something) by intuition or insight
-
to conjecture (something); guess
-
to discern (a hidden or future reality) as though by supernatural power
-
(tr) to search for (underground supplies of water, metal, etc) using a divining rod
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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divinenessnoun
-
divinernoun
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subdivinenessnoun
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divinableadjective
-
half-divineadjective
-
predivinableadjective
-
pseudodivineadjective
-
subdivineadjective
-
superdivineadjective
-
undivinableadjective
-
undivinedadjective
-
undiviningadjective
-
divinelyadverb
-
half-divinelyadverb
-
subdivinelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
divinesimple
-
divinessimple
-
have divinedperfect
-
has divinedperfect
-
am diviningprogressive
-
are diviningprogressive
-
is diviningprogressive
-
have been diviningperfect progressive
-
has been diviningperfect progressive
Past
-
divinedsimple
-
had divinedperfect
-
was diviningprogressive
-
were diviningprogressive
-
had been diviningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of divine
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English divin(e), devin(e), from Old French devin(e), Latin dīvīnus, equivalent to dīv(us) “god” + -īnus -ine 1
Explanation
"To err is human, to forgive divine" means that everyone makes mistakes, but we should try to be like god and forgive one another. Divine basically means relating to, coming from, or like God or a god. Divine also has an old-fashioned and informal meaning of being very good or pleasing, as in "She looked absolutely divine in her blue and white gown." This is an adjective that goes back to Middle English, borrowed from Old French devine, from Latin dīvīnus "divine, foreseeing," from dīvus "god."
Vocabulary lists containing divine
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
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"The Raven"
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World Religions
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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.
See Examples For:
But its performance was impossible to divine in qualifying because the straight-line mode - which opens the front and rear wings to reduce drag - was not working on Fernando Alonso's car.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
There have been eight female emperors on the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan's imperial family, whose divine status was renounced after World War II.
From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026
Painters also adopted European conventions emphasizing divine rule in imperial portraits, as in a posthumous one of Akbar with a halo and winged cherubs above him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
Another clear argument against divine design is the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which takes a course that simply makes no sense to invent.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026
It tasted like summer, like fun, like innocence in the Rio Grande; so I swallowed, and the purity of it was divine.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
Brook was one of those rare divines, to borrow Portia’s metaphor from “The Merchant of Venice,” who followed his own instructions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2022
It’s about moving with his wife and young sons to Lyon, where he works in restaurant kitchens and divines the secrets of French cuisine.
From New York Times ● Dec. 2, 2020
Adams talks a lot about “systemising”, the quintessentially autistic way in which he divines patterns in the world, often immersing himself in them.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 19, 2016
Puritan divines made explicit links between the washing of the physical body in water and that of the spirit in baptism.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 5, 2016
The two divines wore tunics “the color of the men of light,” as Marcos called the color yellow.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Slate’s judicial diviner Mark Joseph Stern joins to talk about a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on abortion that really took both text and history and human rights seriously.
From Slate ● Feb. 3, 2024
There is also Augure, a diviner who can sense the future, and from the start the omens look forbidding for the newlyweds.
From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2021
Lacking recourse to the United Nations, the Moabites turned to a diviner named Balaam to curse the Israelis.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 30, 2020
“I have no plan when I go into the studio,” said Garry Nichols, who has a sideline as a water diviner.
From New York Times ● Jun. 5, 2013
Commune with the spirits, the diviner had said.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
This belief was revived during the Renaissance, leading Milton to exclaim, in his poem “Il Penseroso”: “Hail divinest Melancholy/Whose saintly visage is too bright/To hit the sense of human sight.”
From New York Times ● Feb. 26, 2010
Emerson's habitual quest for only the divinest traits and his quickened perception of the best in men enabled him to recognize excellencies which were yet unseen by others.
From Literary Shrines The Haunts of Some Famous American Authors by Theodore F. (Theodore Frelinghuysen) Wolfe
“Worthy father of Lady Hebron, my revered wife,” said Tutmosis, “from thy bearing I see that thou divinest the subject of which I wish to speak.”
From The Pharaoh and the Priest An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt by Alexander Glovatski
That is not the word; he is the divinest madman!
From The Front Yard by Constance Fenimore Woolson
The Elegy is the expression in divinest poetry of the best conceptions of a noble soul upon the most serious topic on which human thought can dwell.
From A Literary Pilgrimage Among the Haunts of Famous British Authors by Theodore F. (Theodore Frelinghuysen) Wolfe
Standard analysis divined from the usual awards season augury skews in favor of Anderson and “One Battle,” too.
From Salon ● Mar. 13, 2026
Yet Oldham divined a prohibition from the penumbras of an 1872 statute.
From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2025
The challenge for those affected is that the precise position of US foreign policy is having to be divined.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2025
For example, Roman priests divined the will of the gods by examining a sacrificed animal’s entrails, a custom adopted from the Etruscans.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
Sky Witness seems to have divined or inspired resentment in Oxwitza’.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
In a Substack post on Wednesday, Basmajian identifies the most reliable sectors with predictive value for divining future economic activity.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 18, 2026
This laudable notion of divining true skill should be extended to teachers to mitigate the oh-so-tempting use of AI in lesson plans, discussions, projects and tests.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025
To take inspiration from this fundamental part of L.A.’s past in hopes of divining its future.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2025
The most-watched broadcast TV show of the recently ended 2024-2025 season, according to Nielsen, is “Tracker,” which is highly entertaining, but not a significant source for divining meaning about America’s political and cultural health.
From Salon ● Jul. 16, 2025
Nivea took charge of Clara’s trousseau, since Clara did not show the slightest interest in the contents of the sandalwood trunks, and continued her experiments with the three-legged table and her divining cards.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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.
