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.
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a priest or member of the clergy.
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the Divine,
-
God.
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(sometimes lowercase) the spiritual aspect of humans; the group of attributes and qualities of humankind regarded as godly or godlike.
-
verb (used with object)
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divines,
present (3rd person singular)
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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
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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
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divinernoun
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subdivinenessnoun
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divinableadjective
-
half-divineadjective
-
predivinableadjective
-
pseudodivineadjective
-
subdivineadjective
-
superdivineadjective
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undivinableadjective
-
undivinedadjective
-
undiviningadjective
-
divinelyadverb
-
half-divinelyadverb
-
subdivinelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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divinesimple
-
divinessimple
-
have divinedperfect
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has divinedperfect
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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:
His victory speech, which will come later tonight, will be studied by pundits seeking to divine his intentions.
From Salon ● Nov. 4, 2026
Back in Malang, resident Ahmad Saifuddin joined others in praying for divine intervention.
From Barron's ● Oct. 22, 2026
In the east and some other parts, as well as among Hindus in Bangladesh, the festival sees devotees worshipping the divine feminine power with Durga Puja celebrations.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
The pair at last, like Odysseus or Virgil’s Aeneas, heed divine guidance: They are offered a way back to family and guided onward toward the “home” of eternity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
It hung between grief and yearning, and it welled from a deep ache for something that Pax could never divine.
From "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker
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
But it never does quite marry the two divines.
From Economist ● May 24, 2018
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
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
By the time Cass, a diviner who’s had disturbing visions before, returns with a policeman a second time, she has started to doubt what she saw.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2011
“If I cure you, will you stop doing that?” the diviner asked.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
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
He was the divinest and sweetest impersonation of unostentatious unselfishness and of transparent honesty and integrity that I ever knew among men.
From The Story of a Life by J. Breckenridge (John Breckenridge) Ellis
Thou dost dwell here, I know, divinest Joy: But they who build thy towers fair and strong, Of all that toil, feel most of care and wrong.
From The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges by Robert Bridges
“For when I drank of that divinest anguish, How could I taste the empty world again?”
From All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography The Red Leaves of a Human Heart by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
He who forsakes that business, and, wasting our divinest gifts, sings the praise of Chaos, what shall we say of him?
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852. by Various
Meanwhile, Alex Fynn, an author and football consultant, divined that match-going fans would be seen by clubs as "incidental".
From BBC ● May 4, 2026
Yet Oldham divined a prohibition from the penumbras of an 1872 statute.
From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2025
The status of their romance was divined through the way the nut burned.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2023
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
Alive one moment, dead the next, because that is how my divided brain divined the world.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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
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
Goth Shakira is an Aquarian Queen of Pentacles divining and loving in Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2025
The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
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