diverge

present singular third person diverges · participle present diverging · participle past diverged · past diverged

1. intransitiveliterallyTo run apart; to separate; to tend into different directions.

   Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both / […]

   1916, Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” (poem), in Mountain Interval

2. figurativelyintransitiveopinions; or anything else; opinions; or anything elseTo become different; to run apart; to separate; to tend into different directions.

   Both stories start out the same way, but they diverge halfway through.

   2 more examples

   The brooding, black-clad singer bridged a stark divide that emerged in the recording industry in the 1950s, as post-Elvis pop singers diverged into two camps and audiences aligned themselves with either the sideburned rebels of rock 'n' roll or the cowboy-hatted twangsters of country music.

   2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 28

   “Earth Two,” a new series by writer James Robinson and artist Nicola Scott, reintroduces the concept by putting a new spin on the original versions of characters like the Green Lantern, the Flash and Superman that diverges notably from the past several decades of DC lore.

   2012 June 1, Matthew Perpetua, “Original Green Lantern comes out as gay in DC Comics’ ‘Earth Two’”, in CNN

3. intransitiveliterallyTo separate, to tend into a different direction (from another line or path).

   The sidewalk runs next to the street for a few miles, then diverges from it and turns north.

   3 more examples

   The last 61 miles of the journey, from Kongsberg to Oslo, are through much less mountainous country. The railway curves sharply away from the Lågan^([sic]), and descends steadily, and in places steeply, past the head of Lake Fiskerumvatn to Hokksund, where the connecting line to the Bergen-Oslo Railway at Hønefoss diverges.

   1956 April, H. A. Vallance, “To Oslo via Stavanger”, in Railway Magazine, page 219

   Aedeagus in lateral view with preatrium well developed, almost as long as shaft, shaft slender, tubular, straight, diverging from line of preatrium about 30°, with membranous flanges on dorsal side variable in shape, dorsoatrium absent but with pair of ligaments connecting to anal tube laterally, in ventral view aedeagus shaft and preatrium nearly broadened at atrium, gonopore apical (Figs 4C, 4F–4I, 5A and 5G–5I ).

   2015 October 1, “Clarification of the Identity of the Tea Green Leafhopper Based on Morphological Comparison between Chinese and Japanese Specimens”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI

   North of Tain [...], the line reaches the southern shore of Dornoch Firth. Here, the railway and the A9 trunk road, which have hitherto run close together, diverge.

   2021 October 20, Paul Stephen, “Leisure and pleasure on the Far North Line”, in RAIL, number 942, page 49

4. figurativelyintransitiveopinion; or anything else; opinion; or anything elseTo become different, to separate (from another line or path).

   The software is pretty good, except for a few cases where its behavior diverges from user expectations.

5. intransitiveseries; or function; series; or functionmathematicsNot to converge: to have no limit, or no finite limit.

   The sequence a#95;n#61;(-1)ⁿ diverges; it keeps oscillating between -1 and 1.

   1 more example

   The sequence x#95;n#61;n² diverges to infinity: that is, it increases without bound.

plural diverges

1. A point where a lane branches off from the main flow.