All 16 Uses of
divine
in
The Mill on the Floss
- It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her own desires,—of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole.†
Chpt 4.3
- She and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the most exquisite moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of passion,—when each is sure of the other's love, but no formal declaration has been made, and all is mutual divination, exalting the most trivial word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and delicious as wafted jasmine scent.†
Chpt 6.1 *divination = the act of predicting or discover something supernaturally (as if by magic)
- Stephen presently turned to a duet which he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing; he had often done the same thing before; but this evening Philip thought he divined some double intention in every word and look of Stephen's, and watched him keenly, angry with himself all the while for this clinging suspicion.†
Chpt 6.13 *divined = discovered
- Thought was busy though the lips were silent; and though he could ask no question, he guessed a story of almost miraculous, divinely protected effort.†
Chpt 7.5
- Mrs. Tulliver's blond face seemed aged ten years by the last thirty hours; the poor woman's mind had been busy divining when her favorite things were being knocked down by the terrible hammer; her heart had been fluttering at the thought that first one thing and then another had gone to be identified as hers in the hateful publicity of the Golden Lion; and all the while she had to sit and make no sign of this inward agitation.†
Chpt 3.6
- "You don't call Mumps a cur, I suppose?" said Maggie, divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master.†
Chpt 4.3
- And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof....Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world.†
Chpt 4.3
- The greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he couldn't have told how he did it, and we can't tell why we feel it to be divine.†
Chpt 5.1
- The greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he couldn't have told how he did it, and we can't tell why we feel it to be divine.†
Chpt 5.1
- So it has been since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of horses; inside the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling their long, empty days with memories and fears; outside, the men, in fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of wounds in the hurrying ardor of action.†
Chpt 5.2
- The full, lustrous face, with the bright black coronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up to it.†
Chpt 5.3 *
- Where, then, would be all the memories of early striving; all the deep pity for another's pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of affection and hardship; all the divine presentiment of something higher than mere personal enjoyment, which had made the sacredness of life?†
Chpt 6.13
- She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up and down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,— "The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine."†
Chpt 6.13
- We can only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for the sake of obeying the divine voice within us,—for the sake of being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives.†
Chpt 6.14
- All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy.†
Chpt 7.2
- I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain,—the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want?†
Chpt 7.3
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 discover or predict something supernaturally (as if by magic)
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(3)
(divine as in: divined through intuition) to discover or guess something -- usually through intuition or reflection
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(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.