All 3 Uses of
divine
in
Romeo and Juliet
- Despised substance of divinest show!
Scene 3.2 (definition 1) *divinest = most wonderful
- I have an ill-divining soul!
Scene 3.5 (definition 2) *divining = predicting something by magic
Uses with a very rare meaning:
- O friar, the damned use that word in hell;
Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
To mangle me with that word banishment?
Scene 3.3 (definition 3) *divine = a priest
Definitions:
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(1) (divine as in: to forgive is divine) wonderful; or god-like or coming from God
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(2) (divine as in: divined from tea leaves) to predict or discover something supernaturally (as if by magic)
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(3) (meaning too rare to warrant focus) In the time of Shakespeare, divine was sometimes used as a noun to reference a priest or a person of the church. (To remember that sense, think of the clergyman as having come from God).
Divinity typically refers to a god or to a school of religion, but on rare occasions, it refers to the name of a kind of soft white candy. To remember that sense, you might think of it as tasting divine/wonderful.