Divinity

How to spell divinity

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce divinity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does divinity mean?

1. nounThe state or quality of being divine, or a divine being such as a god.
2. nounThe academic study of religion and the nature of God; theology.

Divinity in a sentence

• Believers spoke of the divinity they sensed in the ancient temple.

• She enrolled in a course on divinity at the cathedral college.

• The poem describes the divinity of a sun god worshipped long ago.

• The old university still awards a doctorate in divinity.

Where does divinity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin divinitas, meaning 'the quality of being a god' or 'godhood', which was built on the adjective divinus, 'belonging to a god' or 'godlike'. That adjective in turn rests on divus, an old word for a god or deity, a close relative of deus 'god' and ultimately tied to an ancient root meaning 'to shine' or 'sky', the same family that gave us 'Jupiter' and 'Zeus'. English took the word in through Old French divinite during the 1300s, first to name the divine nature of God and soon afterwards to describe the academic study of religion. The spelling keeps the single -v- and the -ity ending of its Latin source, and the trap for writers is the unstressed second and fourth vowels, both reduced to a faint schwa in speech, so the i in divin-i-ty is easy to misjudge. The same divinus root still lights up everyday words such as 'divine' and 'diva', the latter literally a 'goddess' of the stage.

How the word is built

• divin- (from Latin divinus: of a god, godlike)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)