All 3 Uses of
divine
in
Candide
- "Have you seen," said the Perigordian Abbe, "the romance of Sieur Gauchat, doctor of divinity?"†
Chpt 22divinity = the state of being god-like; or of being a god
- We have a crowd of silly writings, but all together do not approach the impertinence of 'Gauchat, Doctor of Divinity.'†
Chpt 22 *
- For my part I see nothing so divine as the Fathers who here make war upon the kings of Spain and Portugal, and in Europe confess those kings; who here kill Spaniards, and in Madrid send them to heaven; this delights me, let us push forward.†
Chpt 14
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)
(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.