divine
Americanadjective
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of or relating to a god, especially the Supreme Being.
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addressed, appropriated, or devoted to God or a god; religious; sacred.
divine worship.
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proceeding from God or a god.
divine laws;
divine guidance.
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godlike; characteristic of or befitting a deity.
divine magnanimity.
-
the divine kingdom.
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extremely good; unusually lovely.
He has the most divine tenor voice.
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being a god; being God.
Zeus, Hera, and other divine beings in Greek mythology.
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of superhuman or surpassing excellence.
Beauty is divine.
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Obsolete. of or relating to divinity or theology.
noun
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a theologian; scholar in religion.
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a priest or member of the clergy.
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the Divine,
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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.
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verb (used with object)
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to discover or declare (something obscure or in the future) by divination; prophesy.
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to discover (water, metal, etc.) by means of a divining rod.
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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
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Archaic. to portend.
verb (used without object)
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to use or practice divination; prophesy.
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to have perception by intuition or insight; conjecture.
- Synonyms:
- understand, discern
adjective
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of, relating to, or characterizing God or a deity
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godlike
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of, relating to, or associated with religion or worship
the divine liturgy
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of supreme excellence or worth
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informal splendid; perfect
noun
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(often capital) another term for God
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a priest, esp one learned in theology
verb
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to perceive or understand (something) by intuition or insight
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to conjecture (something); guess
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to discern (a hidden or future reality) as though by supernatural power
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(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
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half-divineadjective
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predivinableadjective
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pseudodivineadjective
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subdivineadjective
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superdivineadjective
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undivinableadjective
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undivinedadjective
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undiviningadjective
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divinelyadverb
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half-divinelyadverb
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subdivinelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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divinesimple
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divinessimple
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have divinedperfect
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has divinedperfect
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am diviningprogressive
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are diviningprogressive
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is diviningprogressive
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have been diviningperfect progressive
-
has been diviningperfect progressive
Past
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divinedsimple
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had divinedperfect
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was diviningprogressive
-
were diviningprogressive
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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:
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
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
The Iranians picked a quote referring to the Battle of Badr, in which the Prophet Muhammad’s followers defeated a much larger force through what was interpreted as a divine intervention.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
This would “place us openly under the divine protection,” he noted.
From Salon ● Jun. 29, 2026
Who has need of a divine creator who must sell inferior marmalade?’”
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
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
The tech giant is understandably reluctant to share the secrets of how it divines such closely held data, though clearly it has special powers to tap into the hive mind of the greater Internet.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 24, 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
TULSA, Okla. — The landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh is a diviner of places, a city whisperer.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2018
The water diviner will soon be positioned directly over the subway.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2012
I guessed I’d better fess up about the diviner, since that cat was out of the bag anyway.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
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
The ancients evidently considered philosophical poetry as of the highest kind, and its themes are invariably placed in the mouths of their divinest songsters446.
From History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Volume I by Dunlop, John
It is the divinest experience the nose can give us.
From Fr?ulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther by Arnim, Elizabeth von
The refuge of divinest things, Their record must abide in thee.
From Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 by Elliott, Maud Howe
The divinest faculty in man is that by which truth is discovered.
From The Roman Poets of the Republic by Sellar, W. Y.
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
François was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from the disrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble.
From "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London
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
Goth Shakira is an Aquarian digital conjurer and Queen of Pentacles divining in Los Angeles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2024
Clara realized that that was why none of her infallible methods of divining had worked.
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.
