All 3 Uses of
divine
in
Romeo and Juliet
- Despised substance of divinest show!
p. 140.7 *divinest = most wonderful
- I have an ill-divining soul!
p. 168.1 *divining = predicting something by magic
Uses with a meaning too rare to warrant foucs:
- 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?p. 148.8 *divine = a priest
Definitions:
-
(1)
(divine as in: to forgive is divine) wonderful; or god-like or coming from God
-
(2)
(divine as in: divined from tea leaves) to discover or predict something supernaturally (as if by magic)
-
(3)
(divine as in: divined through intuition) to discover or guess something -- usually through intuition or reflection
-
(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) 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.