Word of the Day

: January 24, 2025

divers

adjective DYE-verz

What It Means

Divers is an adjective meaning "numbering more than one."

// The tri-county fair offers divers amusements for the whole family.

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divers in Context

"'These prizes reflect the diversity of this year's edition,' NIFFF [Neuchatel Int’l Fantastic Film Festival] artistic director Pierre-Yves Walder tells Variety. 'Our festival showcases the fantastic in all its forms, promoting divers styles, points of view, themes, and aesthetics—and I think these winners really show as much.'" — Ben Croll, Variety, 9 July 2022

Did You Know?

Divers is not a misspelling of diverse—it is a word in its own right. Both adjectives come from Latin diversus, meaning "turning in opposite directions," and both historically could be pronounced as either DYE-verz (like the plural of the noun diver) or dye-VERSS. Divers (now pronounced more frequently as DYE-verz) is typically used before a plural noun to indicate an unspecified quantity ("a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments" — Jane Eyre); it's a rather formal word and not commonly encountered. Diverse (usually dye-VERSS) is frequently called upon to emphasize variety. It means either "dissimilar" or "unlike" (as in "a variety of activities to appeal to the children's diverse interests") or "made up of people or things that are different from each other" (as in "a diverse student body").