Guest Mores Posted August 13, 2019 Report Share Posted August 13, 2019 (edited) For all you logophiles out there... I was just reading scriptures and came across the word "divers". I had always thought it was simply an archaic spelling of "diverse". And I pronounced it as such. But it appears I was wrong. Quote The archaic adjective "divers" means various or many. "Diverse" means having great variety. For instance, a group of three can be called diverse if all three elements differ from one another, but we wouldn’t call the group divers because three are not many. Still, divers (usually pronounced DIE-verz) has given way to diverse in the sense meaning various, and in the many sense it gives way to other synonyms. The word has not been widely used in over a century, and even in the 19th century it was mainly a poeticism. -- The Grammarist Thought it was interesting. Edited August 13, 2019 by Mores Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anatess2 Posted August 13, 2019 Report Share Posted August 13, 2019 Vort and mikbone 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeuroTypical Posted August 13, 2019 Report Share Posted August 13, 2019 The more divers things get, diverse things get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikbone Posted August 13, 2019 Report Share Posted August 13, 2019 (edited) sorry Edited August 13, 2019 by mikbone Vort 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie123 Posted August 16, 2019 Report Share Posted August 16, 2019 On 8/13/2019 at 3:08 PM, Mores said: ...various or many... The "or" is significant: A quick Googling tells me that "various" means "different from one another; of different kinds or sorts", so a group of three totally different things could be "divers". So I think "The Grammarist" has got it wrong! 😛 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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