Diver

How to spell diver

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce diver

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does diver mean?

1. nounA person who dives, especially one who swims underwater using breathing equipment or who performs jumps into water.

Diver in a sentence

• The diver checked the oxygen tank before descending to the wreck.

• Every diver on the team practised the same backward somersault from the high board.

Where does diver come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built straightforwardly from the verb 'dive' plus the agent ending '-er', which marks the person or thing that performs an action. The verb itself descends from Old English, where two related verbs sat side by side: dūfan, meaning 'to sink or plunge down', and dȳfan, meaning 'to dip or immerse'. These come from a Germanic root tied to the idea of going under water, the same family that gave Dutch 'duiken' and the second half of the bird name 'mergus'. Over time the two old verbs blended into the single modern 'dive', and 'diver' has been used since the Middle Ages both for a person who plunges into water and for water birds that feed by submerging. The spelling stays simple because the silent final 'e' of 'dive' is dropped before the '-er', leaving a single 'v' rather than a doubled one.

How the word is built

• dive (from Old English dūfan, to plunge or sink)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)