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diva [diva 词源字典]: diva: see divine
[diva etymology, diva origin, 英语词源]
divan: divan: [16] The word divan has a long and spectacularly variegated semantic history. It started out as Persian dēvān, which originally meant ‘small book’. This came to be used specifically for ‘account book’, and eventually for ‘accountant’s office’. From this its application broadened out to cover various official chambers and the bodies which occupied them, such as tax offices, customs collectors, courts, and councils of state.

And finally it developed to ‘long seat’, of the sort which lined the walls of such Oriental chambers. The word carried these meanings with it via Arabic dīwān and Turkish divān into the European languages, and English acquired most of them as a package deal from French divan or Italian devano (it did not, however, include the ‘customs’ sense which, via the Turkish variant duwan, survives in French douane, Italian dogana, Spanish aduana, etc).

The 19th-century sense ‘smoking lounge’ seems to be an exclusively European development.
dive: dive: [OE] Old English dyfan ‘dive’ came from a prehistoric Germanic *dūbjan. This was a derivative of the base *d(e)ub-, a variant of which, *d(e)up-, was the source of English deep and dip. The colloquial use of the noun for a disreputable bar, nightclub, etc, which comes from 1880s America, is probably a reference to someone ‘diving’ out of sight into such an establishment, which was often in a basement.
=> deep, dip
diverge: diverge: see verge
diverse: diverse: [13] Diverse is one of a small family of English words, including also divers, divert, and divorce, which come ultimately from Latin dīvertere. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘aside’ and vertere ‘turn’ (source of English verse, version, vertebra, etc and related to worth), and hence meant literally ‘turn aside, turn out of the way’.

It developed in various metaphorical directions, however. One was ‘turn one’s husband or wife out of the way’ which, via the variant dīvortere, gave English divorce [14]. The central sense of the verb passed more or less unchanged into English, via French divertir, as divert [15], but its past participle diversus illustrates a further metaphorical strand, in which ‘turned aside’ has become ‘separate, different’.

English acquired this via Old French in the 13th century in two distinct forms: masculine divers and feminine diverse. The present-day semantic distinction between the former (‘various, several’) and the latter (‘different’) had established itself by around 1700.
=> divert, divorce, verse, version, worth
divest: divest: see vest
divide: divide: [14] Etymologically, divide shares its underlying notion of ‘separation’ with widow ‘woman parted from or bereft of her husband’, which comes ultimately from the same source. English acquired it from Latin dīvidere ‘split up, divide’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘apart’ and -videre, a verbal element meaning ‘separate’ which is represented in Sanskrit vindháte ‘is empty’ as well as in widow, and goes back to an Indo-European base *weidh- ‘separate’.

English device and devise come ultimately from *dīvisāre, a Vulgar Latin derivative of dīvidere, and individual belongs to the same word family.
=> device, individual, widow
divine: divine: [14] Like deity, divine comes ultimately from Indo-European *deiwos, an ancestor whose godly connotations seem to have developed from earlier associations with ‘sky’ and ‘day’, and which probably originally meant ‘shining’. Its Latin descendants included deus ‘god’ (source of English deity) and the adjective dīvus ‘godlike’ (the noun use of its feminine form, dīva, for ‘goddess’ entered English via Italian as diva ‘prima donna’ [19]).

From dīvus was derived the further adjective dīvīnus, which became Old French devin and eventually English divine. Dīvīnus was used as a noun meaning, in classical times, ‘soothsayer’ (whence, via the Latin derivative dīvīnāre, the English verb divine) and in the Middle Ages ‘theologian’ (whence the nominal use of English divine in the same sense).
=> deity
divorce: divorce: see diverse
divulge: divulge: [15] Etymologically, to divulge something is to make it known to the vulgar masses. The word comes from Latin dīvulgāre, a compound verb formed from the prefix dis- ‘widely’ and vulgāre ‘make common, publish’. This in turn was derived from vulgus ‘common people’, source of English vulgar. At first in English it was semantically neutral, meaning ‘make widely known’ (‘fame of his ouvrages [works, achievements] hath been divulged’, William Caxton, Book of Eneydos 1490), but by the 17th century the word’s modern connotations of ‘disclosing what should be secret’ had developed.
=> vulgar
individual: individual: [15] To begin with, individual retained in English its ancestral meaning ‘not able to be divided’: ‘in the name of the holy and individual Trinity’. Richard Whitbourne, Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland 1623. It was borrowed from medieval Latin indīviduālis, a derivative of Latin indīviduus ‘not divisible’, which in turn was based on dīviduus, a derivative of the verb dīvidere ‘divide’. The semantic move from ‘not divisible’ to ‘single, separate’ took place in the 17th century. (English acquired the formally parallel indivisible, incidentally, in the 14th century.)
=> divide
recidivist: recidivist: [19] A recidivist – a ‘persistent offender’ – is etymologically someone who ‘falls back’. The word was borrowed from French récidiviste, a descendant of medieval Latin recidīvāre. This in turn was based on the noun recidīvus ‘falling back’, a derivative of Latin recidere ‘fall back’, which was a compound verb formed from the prefix re- ‘back, again’ and cadere ‘fall’ (source of English cadence, case, decadent, etc).
=> cadaver, cadence, case, decadent
biodiversity (n.): also bio-diversity, by 1988, from bio- + diversity.
diva (n.): "distinguished woman singer, prima donna," 1883, from Italian diva "goddess, fine lady," from Latin diva "goddess," fem. of divus "divine (one);" see divine (adj.).
divagate (v.): 1590s, from Latin divagatus, past participle of divagari "to wander about," from di(s)- "apart" (see dis-) + vagari "to wander, ramble" (see vague). Related: Divagated; divagating.
divagation (n.): 1550s, noun of action from Latin divagatus, past participle of divagari (see divagate).
divan (n.): 1580s, "Oriental council of state," from Turkish divan, from Arabic diwan, from Persian devan "bundle of written sheets, small book, collection of poems" (as in the "Divan i-Hafiz"), related to debir "writer."

Sense evolved through "book of accounts," to "office of accounts," "custom house," "council chamber," then to "long, cushioned seat," such as are found along the walls in Middle Eastern council chambers (see couch). The sofa/couch sense was taken into English 1702; the "book of poems" sense in 1823.
dive (v.): mid-13c., from Old English dufan "to dive, duck, sink" (intransitive, class II strong verb; past tense deaf, past participle dofen) and dyfan "to dip, submerge" (weak, transitive), from Proto-Germanic verb *dubijan, from PIE *dheub- "deep, hollow" (see deep (adj.)). Past tense dove is a later formation, perhaps on analogy of drive/drove. Related: Diving. Dive bomber attested by 1939.
dive (n.): c. 1700, from dive (v.). Sense of "disreputable bar" is first recorded American English 1871, perhaps because they were usually in basements, and going into one was both a literal and figurative "diving."
diver (n.): c. 1500, agent noun from dive (v.).
diverge (v.): 1660s, from Modern Latin divergere "go in different directions," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + vergere "to bend, turn" (see verge (v.)). Originally a term in optics; the figurative sense is 19c. Related: Diverged; diverging.
divergence (n.): 1650s, from Modern Latin divergentia, from divergens (see diverge). Related: Divergency.
divergent (adj.): 1690s, from Modern Latin divergentem (nominative divergens), present participle of divergere (see diverge). Related: Divergently.
divers (adj.): mid-13c., "not alike" (sense now in diverse); late 13c., "separate, distinct; various," from Old French divers (11c.) "different, various, singular, odd, exceptional, wretched, treacherous, perverse," from Latin diversus "turned different ways," in Late Latin "various," past participle of divertere (see divert).

Sense of "several, numerous" is recorded from c. 1300, referring "originally and in form to the variety of objects; but, as variety implies number, becoming an indefinite numeral word expressing multiplicity" [OED], a sense that emerged by c. 1400.
diverse (adj.): c. 1300, spelling variant of divers (q.v.), perhaps by analogy with converse, traverse, etc. In some cases directly from Latin diversus, and since c. 1700 restricted to the meaning "different in character or quality." Related: Diversely.
diversification (n.): c. 1600, noun of action from Medieval Latin diversificare (see diversify). Economic sense is from 1939.
diversify (v.): late 15c., from Old French diversifier (13c.) "to make diverse," from Medieval Latin diversificare, from Latin diversus (see diverse). Economic sense is from 1939. Related: Diversified; diversifying.
diversion (n.): early 15c., "diverse condition;" c. 1600 "act of diverting," from Middle French diversion, from Late Latin diversionem (nominative diversio), noun of action from past participle stem of Latin divertere (see divert).

Sense of "amusement, entertainment" is first recorded 1640s. Hence, divertimento (1823), from the Italian form; originally "a musical composition designed primarily for entertainment."
diversity (n.): mid-14c., "quality of being diverse," mostly in a neutral sense, from Old French diversité (12c.) "difference, diversity, unique feature, oddness:" also "wickedness, perversity," from Latin diversitatem (nominative diversitas) "contrariety, contradiction, disagreement;" also, as a secondary sense, "difference, diversity," from diversus "turned different ways" (in Late Latin "various"), past participle of divertere (see divert).

Negative meaning, "being contrary to what is agreeable or right; perversity, evil" existed in English from late 15c. but was obsolete from 17c. Diversity as a virtue in a nation is an idea from the rise of modern democracies in the 1790s, where it kept one faction from arrogating all power (but this was not quite the modern sense, as ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, etc. were not the qualities in mind):
The dissimilarity in the ingredients which will compose the national government, and still more in the manner in which they will be brought into action in its various branches, must form a powerful obstacle to a concert of views in any partial scheme of elections. There is sufficient diversity in the state of property, in the genius, manners, and habits of the people of the different parts of the Union, to occasion a material diversity of disposition in their representatives towards the different ranks and conditions in society. ["Federalist" #60, Feb. 26, 1788 (Hamilton)]
Specific focus (in a positive sense) on race, gender, etc. is from 1992.
divert (v.): early 15c., from Middle French divertir (14c.), from Latin divertere "to turn in different directions," blended with devertere "turn aside," from dis- "aside" and de- "from" + vertere "to turn" (see versus). Related: Diverted; diverting.
diverticulum (n.): "blind tube" (anatomical), 1819, Modern Latin, from Latin deverticulum "a bypath," from devertere "to turn aside" (see divert).
Dives: traditional name for a rich man, late 14c., from Latin dives "rich (man);" see Dis. Used in Luke xvi in Vulgate and commonly mistaken as the proper name of the man in the parable. Related to divus "divine," and originally meaning "favored by the gods" (see divine (adj.)).
divest (v.): 1560s, devest (modern spelling is c. 1600), from Middle French devester "strip of possessions," from Old French desvestir, from des- "away" (see dis-) + vestir "to clothe" (see vest (v.)).

The figurative sense of "strip of possessions" is earliest in English; reflexive sense of "to strip oneself of" is from c. 1600. Economic sense (implied in divestment) is from 1955. Related: Divested; divesting.
divestiture (n.): c. 1600, from divest on analogy of investiture. Economics sense is from 1961.
divide (v.): early 14c., from Latin dividere "to force apart, cleave, distribute," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + -videre "to separate," from PIE root *weidh- "to separate" (see widow; also see with).

Mathematical sense is from early 15c. Divide and rule (c. 1600) translates Latin divide et impera, a maxim of Machiavelli. Related: Divided; dividing.
divide (n.): 1640s, "act of dividing," from divide (v.). Meaning "watershed, separation between river valleys" is first recorded 1807, American English.
dividend (n.): late 15c., from Middle French dividende "a number divided by another," from Latin dividendum "thing to be divided," neuter gerundive of dividere (see divide). Mathematical sense is from 1540s. Meaning "portion of interest on a loan, stock, etc." is from 1620s. Related: Dividends.
divider (n.): 1520s, agent noun from divide (v.). Meaning "partition or screen," especially in a room, is from 1959.
divination (n.): late 14c., from Old French divination (13c.), from Latin divinationem (nominative divinatio) "the power of foreseeing, prediction," noun of action from past participle stem of divinare, literally "to be inspired by a god" (see divine (adj.)).
divine (adj.): c. 1300, from Old French devin (12c.), from Latin divinus "of a god," from divus "a god," related to deus "god, deity" (see Zeus). Weakened sense of "excellent" had evolved by late 15c.
divine (v.): "to conjure, to guess," originally "to make out by supernatural insight," mid-14c., from Old French deviner, from Vulgar Latin *devinare, dissimilated from *divinare, from Latin divinus (see divine (adj.)), which also meant "soothsayer." Related: Divined; diviner; divining. Divining rod (or wand) attested from 1650s.
divine (n.): c. 1300, "soothsayer," from Old French devin, from Latin divinus (adj.); see divine (adj.). Meaning "ecclesiastic, theologian" is from late 14c.
divinely (adv.): 1580s, from divine (adj.) + -ly (2).
divinity (n.): c. 1300, "science of divine things;" late 14c., "quality of being divine," also "a divine being," from Old French devinité (12c.), from Latin divinitatem (nominative divinitas), from divinus (see divine (adj.)).
divisible (adj.): early 15c., from Old French divisibile, from Late Latin divisibilis, from divis-, past participle stem of Latin dividere (see divide (v.)).
division (n.): late 14c., from Old French division, from Latin divisionem (nominative divisio), from divid-, stem of dividere (see divide). Military sense is first recorded 1590s. Mathematical sense is from early 15c. The mathematical division sign supposedly was invented by British mathematician John Pell (1611-1685) who taught at Cambridge and Amsterdam.
divisive (adj.): c. 1600, "having a quality of dividing," from Latin divis-, past participle stem of dividere (see divide (v.)) + -ive. Meaning "producing discord" is from 1640s. Related: Divisively; divisiveness.
divisor (n.): early 15c., Latin agent noun from dividere (see divide (v.)).
divorce (n.): late 14c., from Old French divorce (14c.), from Latin divortium "separation, dissolution of marriage," from divertere "to separate, leave one's husband, turn aside" (see divert). Not distinguished in English from legal separation until mid-19c.
divorce (v.): late 14c., from Old French divorcer, from divorce (see divorce (n.)). Related: Divorced; divorcing.