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What is "divert"

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divert
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
divert
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a flight is diverted (=it is made to change direction and land at a different airport)
▪ Our flight was diverted to Manchester because of poor weather.
divert suspicion (=make people have suspicions about someone else)
▪ He started the rumour to divert suspicion from himself.
traffic is diverted (=made to go in another direction)
▪ Traffic was diverted onto the A166 as emergency services cleared the wreckage
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
attempt
▪ It viewed the Marshalls attack merely as an enemy attempt to divert strength from our southern operations.
attention
▪ Nor can Major divert attention with good news.
▪ For example: should he stick with Black or divert his attention to the woman?
▪ Environmentalists keep quiet because concern over radon in houses would divert attention from the campaign against nuclear power.
▪ Elya must be furious with her, and she was trying to divert his attention.
▪ The need would be to show, against reasonable expectation, that the second did not divert attention from the first.
▪ That's another way of saying that people have little to divert their attention in restrooms.
▪ Disguise Disguise your steps with feints that make the opponent blink, or which divert his attention elsewhere.
▪ Forbes responded that this is an attempt by his rivals to divert attention from the issues.
energy
▪ Sport for example diverted the energy of the masses into activities that could inculcate both useful and attractive qualities.
▪ Its products also absorb and divert electrical energy.
flow
▪ Left: Waterfalls can chill your water in the winter, unless you divert the flow with a length of pipe.
funds
▪ The submarine tragedy reminds us that armaments and related technologies remain the main sump that diverts funds from essential human priorities.
▪ In recent years, Wilson and the Legislature also have diverted some transportation funds to the deficit-ridden state general fund.
government
▪ Is it not true that the Government want to divert that money to keep down the poll tax in Wandsworth and Westminster?
money
▪ Large sums of money were diverted to them.
▪ All that money diverted from the city treasury predictably left Neza near bankruptcy.
▪ That extra money would then be diverted into personal retirement accounts.
river
▪ Salty water Negi says the 1819 earthquake created a 100-kilometre-long fissure that diverted the river.
▪ The Friant Dam, which diverts the river by canal to Kern County, left the riverbed dry.
road
▪ If the charges for motorway use are too high, they will divert drivers to other roads.
traffic
▪ Small channels are built to divert some of the traffic to the new route.
water
▪ We heard that he was accusing us of diverting all the water on to his field.
▪ Advocates of globalisation advise third world economic planners to divert water away from food production to increase manufacturing.
▪ A hunt follower with a terrier sends it in after others try to divert the water.
■ VERB
try
▪ Rachel has started packing up to leave, and I try to divert her with more coffee.
▪ Elya must be furious with her, and she was trying to divert his attention.
▪ A hunt follower with a terrier sends it in after others try to divert the water.
▪ The flames were moving over 200 feet a minute, and all we could do was try to divert it.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
divert/distract/draw attention from sth
▪ But his banter was a way of distracting attention from the issue at hand.
▪ Combine roses with earlier or later flowering plants, and with evergreens to distract attention from their leafless stems in winter.
▪ It also distracted attention from the continued effects of racism.
▪ Lisa tells us it diverts attention from the pain.
▪ Police said the message was a decoy to distract attention from the real danger area.
▪ Such comments have distracted attention from a long-awaited improvement in the economy.
▪ The authorities are said to take the view that the Gulf war will distract attention from civilian casualties in Jaffna.
▪ They know how to make themselves look good, and they also know how to divert attention from the less flattering stories.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Bring games in the car to divert the children during a long trip.
▪ Farmers were illegally diverting water to save their crops.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ According to Williams, Woods intervened at that point and announced that no funds would be diverted.
▪ Environmentalists keep quiet because concern over radon in houses would divert attention from the campaign against nuclear power.
▪ In all, $ 2.2 million in federal funds was illegally diverted by those convicted, prosecutors said.
▪ Shrub roses were trussed to let people pass; signs erected to divert visitors from the non-scenic compost heap.
▪ The software then diverts all output across the network to the printer on the other machine.
▪ Traffic was diverted on to the A166 as emergency services cleared the wreckage between Dunnington and Kexby, near York.
▪ We heard that he was accusing us of diverting all the water on to his field.
▪ What if unlimited water should be diverted from the two cascades by power-hungry industrialists and power-hungry governments?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Divert

Divert \Di*vert"\, v. i. To turn aside; to digress. [Obs.]

I diverted to see one of the prince's palaces.
--Evelyn.

Divert

Divert \Di*vert"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Diverted; p. pr. & vb. n. Diverting.] [F. divertir, fr. L. divertere, diversum, to go different ways, turn aside; di- = dis- + vertere to turn. See Verse, and cf. Divorce.]

  1. To turn aside; to turn off from any course or intended application; to deflect; as, to divert a river from its channel; to divert commerce from its usual course.

    That crude apple that diverted Eve.
    --Milton.

  2. To turn away from any occupation, business, or study; to cause to have lively and agreeable sensations; to amuse; to entertain; as, children are diverted with sports; men are diverted with works of wit and humor.

    We are amused by a tale, diverted by a comedy.
    --C. J. Smith.

    Syn: To please; gratify; amuse; entertain; exhilarate; delight; recreate. See Amuse.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
divert

early 15c., from Middle French divertir (14c.), from Latin divertere "to turn in different directions," blended with devertere "turn aside," from dis- "aside" and de- "from" + vertere "to turn" (see versus). Related: Diverted; diverting.

Wiktionary
divert

vb. 1 (context transitive English) To turn aside from a course. 2 (context transitive English) To distract. 3 (context transitive English) To entertain or amuse (by diverting the attention) 4 (context obsolete intransitive English) To turn aside; to digress.

WordNet
divert

  1. v. turn aside; turn away from [syn: deviate]

  2. send on a course or in a direction different from the planned or intended one

  3. occupy in an agreeable, entertaining or pleasant fashion; "The play amused the ladies" [syn: amuse, disport]

  4. withdraw (money) and move into a different location, often secretly and with dishonest intentions [syn: hive off]

Usage examples of "divert".

The missiles, like the pinnaces, could be recovered after the completion of their mission, or diverted to other targets, like the merchant vessels that were accelerating madly in an effort to clear the system before Chenforce destroyed them.

Tamarina was returning to Algor and diverted her to their own world, widening the wedge a little further.

In these memorable crusades, a fleet and army of French and Venetians were diverted from Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus: they assaulted the capital, they subverted the Greek monarchy: and a dynasty of Latin princes was seated near threescore years on the throne of Constantine.

A month later, after press revelations that the Atlanta branch of the Italian Banco Nazionale del Lavoro had helped Iraq divert massive amounts of U.

Because the noble rewards and the consideration which former times bestowed on learning are to-day diverted to baser pursuits!

It took Admiral Beagle twenty minutes to negotiate the mile to the resort, and when he came up the last hill, his case a heavy weight in his hand, his heart and lungs and legs all feeling strain, for the moment his attention was diverted from thoughts of redress and retribution.

As a flash of emotion akin to jealousy came to life inside him, Benedict quickly diverted his gaze elsewhere.

Her eyes had a blindish look as if she were trying to divert her mind from some fear by nursing a hope or a memory.

Returning to his path and taking up the quest again, Bozo was a second time diverted from his goal, however briefly, when a herd of vanth galloped across his way.

There, no doubt, they tread on rugs from Teheran and are diverted by the bulbul and play upon the dulcimer and feed upon sweetmeats.

Turkish frontier, but the government is making great efforts to divert the trade to Varna and Burgas, and important harbour works have been carried out at both these ports.

Seeing that the higher we mount in knowledge the more wonders we behold, he imagined that Nature not only worked miracles in her ordinary course, but that she might, by the cabala of some master soul, be diverted from that course itself.

I was certain of success, as he could not see the ends of the pike without twisting his head, and I saw no reason why he should divert his gaze from the plate, which he had enough to do to carry evenly.

I saw that I could neither avoid her nor repulse her without inhumanity, so I called to Rigerboos to come upstairs and the girl would divert us by recounting the history of her life.

Her thinness and her tawny skin could not divert my attention from other still less pleasing features about her.