diviner

noun

di·​vin·​er də-ˈvī-nər How to pronounce diviner (audio)
1
: a person who practices divination : soothsayer
2
: a person who divines the location of water or minerals

Examples of diviner in a Sentence

Diviners foretold of the event. somehow the diviner failed to foresee her own misfortunes with the law
Recent Examples on the Web Often enough, this meant putting the same sorts of people—women making money as healers or diviners, or colonized people whose local belief systems were frightening to the colonizers—on trial. Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 15 Jan. 2024 The diviner confirms the man’s fears: two women have bewitched his wife. Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 15 Jan. 2024 But these abstractions, the aggregate flow of goods and services (in the latter case, specialists such as doctors and diviners), had to be made concrete in the concepts that these people understood. Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 6 July 2010 In a town hit by drought, young Estrella, a water diviner, works with her father, in charge of water distribution to the community. Pablo Sandoval, Variety, 23 Nov. 2023 For shrine pieces or diviner pieces, by placing them on an altar in the space resembling a diviner’s structure, the viewer can better imagine placing an offering on a shrine, or sitting with a diviner for a consultation. San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Feb. 2023 There is a sense that Black women are diviners of culture. Attica Locke, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 June 2023 The opon ifa, or divination tray, is the central instrument used by the diviner or priest in the complex Yoruba ritual of divination, whose purpose is making decisions for ceremonial sacrifices and seeking solutions to serious spiritual problems through the help of ancestors and deities. NOLA.com, 1 Sep. 2020 Together, these twin S’s form the essence of an equation that is arguably the most effective diviner of the future yet devised. Quanta Magazine, 6 Feb. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'diviner.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of diviner was in the 14th century

Dictionary Entries Near diviner

Cite this Entry

“Diviner.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diviner. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

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