Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To go or extend in different directions from a common point; branch out.
  • intransitive verb To depart from an established pattern or norm; deviate.
  • intransitive verb To be different, as in opinion or manner; differ: synonym: swerve.
  • intransitive verb Mathematics To fail to approach a limit.
  • intransitive verb To cause (light rays, for example) to diverge; deflect.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To move or lie in different directions from a common point; branch off: opposed to converge.
  • In general, to become or be separated from another, or one from another; take different courses or directions: as, diverging trains of thought; lives that diverge one from the other.
  • To differ from a typical form; vary from a normal state or from the truth.
  • In mathematics, to become larger (in modulus) without limit: said of an infinite series when, on adding the terms, beginning with the first, the sum increases indefinitely toward infinity. A series may be divergent without diverging. See divergent series, under divergent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To extend from a common point in different directions; to tend from one point and recede from each other; to tend to spread apart; to turn aside or deviate (as from a given direction); -- opposed to converge.
  • intransitive verb To differ from a typical form; to vary from a normal condition; to dissent from a creed or position generally held or taken.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive, literally To run apart; to separate; to tend into different directions.
  • verb intransitive, figuratively To become different; to run apart; to separate; to tend into different directions.
  • verb intransitive, literally To separate, to tend into a different direction (from another line or path).
  • verb intransitive, figuratively To become different, to separate (from another line or path).
  • verb intransitive, mathematics, of a sequence Not to converge: to have no limit, or no finite limit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb have no limits as a mathematical series
  • verb be at variance with; be out of line with
  • verb move or draw apart
  • verb extend in a different direction

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin dīvergere : Latin dī-, dis-, apart; see dis– + Latin vergere, to bend; see wer- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin dīvergō ("bend away from, go in a different direction"), from Latin dī- + vergō ("bend").

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