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.
-
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
-
divinenessnoun
-
divinernoun
-
subdivinenessnoun
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
"The Raven"
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
World Religions
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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:
Sadhguru's "sacred walks", organised by his Isha Foundation, promised a journey to a place "of divine connection, where the veil between the physical and spiritual is thin".
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
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
But divine entities stopped intervening in man’s affairs long ago; besides, I had the answer drawn and nocked since I’d walked out of the theater days before.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2026
They saw messages from the divine in thunder and lightning, bird flight and the entrails of sacrificed animals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
The Odyssey speaks of “the divine for which all men long,” and hundreds of years later Aristotle wrote, “Excellence, much labored for by the race of mortals.”
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
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
Carrie boards the tube carriage where Aidan is sitting; Lev and Fionn share a birthday; Liam divines which bit of ocean is the right one to bump into Scott mid-dip.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 1, 2017
He hears the story of Lancelot and divines his own magic, protective spear.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 19, 2015
“But the old place is finished,” Mr Stockton divines, “and it’s never coming back.”
From Economist ● Apr. 23, 2015
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
The water diviner will soon be positioned directly over the subway.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2012
The diviner took the array of bones and shells in her fat hands, shook them, muttering incantations, then threw them on the mat in front of her.
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
“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
It is the divinest experience the nose can give us.
From Fr?ulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim
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
Nature is mother to all, and has a message for the meanest and most tried of her children; and it is a message of divinest love.
From Courtship and Marriage And the Gentle Art of Home-Making by Annie S. (Annie Shepherd) Swan
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
Cortes divined the discontent beneath the Alliance’s martial display and would later benefit from it.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Others have turned toward astrology, a less scientific but increasingly popular way of divining meaning from the night sky.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
Having said that, it's only two races into the season, so divining any clear pattern would be premature.
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2026
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
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
They lent him their secret books and helped him decipher the mysteries of horoscopes and 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.
