Diverted

How to spell diverted

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce diverted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does diverted mean?

1. verbPast tense of divert: redirected something or someone along a different route or to a different purpose.
2. verbPast tense of divert: amused or entertained, turning attention away from worry or boredom.

Diverted in a sentence

• The roadworks diverted all traffic onto a narrow side street.

• The children were happily diverted by the puppet show for an hour.

• The airline diverted the flight to a nearby city because of the storm.

• A good novel diverted him during the long delay at the airport.

Where does diverted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin divertere, which combined dis- 'aside, apart' with vertere 'to turn', so the literal sense was 'to turn aside' or 'turn in a different direction'. English took it in through Old French divertir during the fifteenth century, keeping that core idea of steering something away from its original course. From the physical notion of turning a road, river, or traveller aside grew the figurative sense of turning the mind away from worry, which is how divert came to mean 'to amuse or entertain'. The same vertere root, meaning 'to turn', powers a whole family of relatives such as convert, reverse, and version, and recognising that shared 'vert' spine helps fix the spelling. The past form simply adds -ed, leaving the single t of vert before the ending.

How the word is built

• di- (apart, aside)
• vert (turn, from Latin vertere)
• -ed (past tense)