different between precious vs divine

English

Alternative forms

• pretious (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English precious, borrowed from Old French precios (“valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”), from Latin preti?sus (“of great value, costly, dear, precious”), from pretium (“value, price”); see price.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p????s/
• Rhymes: -???s

Adjective

precious (comparative more precious, superlative most precious)

1. Of high value or worth.

2. Regarded with love or tenderness.

3. (derogatory) Treated with too much reverence.

4. (derogatory) Contrived to be cute or charming.
5. (colloquial) Thorough; utter.

   a precious rascal

Synonyms

• (of high value): dear, valuable
• (contrived to charm): saccharine, syrupy, twee

Derived terms

• nonprecious
• precious metal
• precious stone
• preciously
• preciousness
• semiprecious

Related terms

Translations

Noun

precious (plural preciouses)

1. Someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.
   • 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

     “It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?”

   • 1909, Mrs. Teignmouth Shore, The Pride of the Graftons (page 57)

     She sat down with the dogs in her lap. "I won't neglect you for any one, will I, my preciouses?"

Adverb

precious (not comparable)

1. Very; an intensifier.

   There is precious little we can do.

   precious few pictures of him exist

Usage notes

This adverb is chiefly used before few and little; usage with other adjectives (slight, small, scant) is much more sporadic, and is in any case limited to the semantic field of “little, small, scarce, few”.

Translations

Further reading

• precious on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

• precious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• precious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: d?-v?n?, IPA^(key): /d??va?n/
• Rhymes: -a?n

Etymology 1

From Old French divin, from Latin d?v?nus (“of a god”), from divus (“god”).

Adjective

divine (comparative more divine, superlative most divine)

1. Of or pertaining to a god.
2. Eternal, holy, or otherwise godlike.
3. Of superhuman or surpassing excellence.
4. Beautiful, heavenly.
5. (obsolete) Foreboding; prescient.
6. (obsolete, of souls) immortal; elect or saved after death
   • 1632, Thomas Heywood, The Iron Age, Part 2:

     (Of that at lea?ure) but the bloody ?tage
     On which to act, Generall this night is thine,
     Thou lye?t downe mortall, who mu?t ri?e diuine.
7. Relating to divinity or theology.

   • church history and other divine learning

Synonyms

• (of or pertaining to a god): deific, godlike, godly
• (eternal, holy): hallowed, holy, sacred
• (of superhuman or surpassing excellence): supreme, ultimate
• (beautiful, heavenly): beautiful, delightful, exquisite, heavenly, lovely, magnificent, marvellous/marvelous, splendid, wonderful

Antonyms

• (of or pertaining to a god): undivine, ungodly
• (eternal, holy): godless, secular, ungodly
• (of superhuman or surpassing excellence): humdrum, mediocre, ordinary
• (beautiful, heavenly): horrible, horrid, nasty, unpleasant

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

divine (plural divines)

1. One skilled in divinity; a theologian.
   • 1668, John Denham, The Progress of Learning

     Poets were the first divines.

2. A minister of the gospel; a priest; a clergyman.
   • December 22, 1820, John Woodbridge, Sermon preached in Hadley in commemoration of the landing our fathers at Plymouth

     The first divines of New England […] were surpassed by none in extensive erudition.

3. (often capitalized, with 'the') God or a god, particularly in its aspect as a transcendental concept.

Synonyms

• (theologian, cleric): clergyman, cleric, man of the cloth, theologian
• (a deity): deity, god, God, Allah (Muslim)

Derived terms

• archdivine
• school-divine

Translations

Etymology 2

Replaced Middle English devine, devin from Middle French deviner, from Latin d?v?n?.

Verb

divine (third-person singular simple present divines, present participle divining, simple past and past participle divined)

1. (transitive) To foretell (something), especially by the use of divination.
   • 1834-1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.

     a sagacity which divined the evil designs
2. (transitive) To guess or discover (something) through intuition or insight.
   • 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night

     no secret can be told
     To any who divined it not before

   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 43

     If in the loneliness of his studio he wrestled desperately with the Angel of the Lord he never allowed a soul to divine his anguish.

   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 250c.

     I suppose that we truly are divining that what is is some third thing when we say that change and stability are.

3. (transitive) To search for (underground objects or water) using a divining rod.
4. To render divine; to deify.
   • c. 1591-1592, Edmund Spenser, Daphnaïda. An Elegy upon the Death of the Noble and Vertuous Douglas Howard, Daughter and Heire of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Byndon, and Wife of Arthure Gorges Esquier

     Living on earth like angel new divined.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Related terms

• a lo divino
• baculus divinatorius
• divinistre
• Divinópolis
• Divinópolis de Goiás
• La Divina
• lectio divina
• Liposcelis divinatorius
• Salvia divinorum
• São José do Divino
• virgula divina
• voce divinare

Anagrams

• dive in

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /di.vin/
• Rhymes: -in

Adjective

divine

1. feminine singular of divin

Italian

Adjective

divine

1. feminine plural of divino

Latin

Etymology

From d?v?nus (“of divine origin”)

Adverb

d?v?n? (comparative d?v?nius, superlative d?v?nissim?)

1. prophetically, by divine inspiration
2. divinely, admirably

Synonyms

• (divinely, admirably): d?v?nitus

Related terms

• d?v?n?ti?
• d?v?nit?s
• d?v?nitus
• d?v?n?
• d?v?nus

References

• divine in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• divine in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• divine in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, 1st edition. (Oxford University Press)

Spanish

Verb

divine

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of divinar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of divinar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of divinar.
4. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of divinar.