Divagation
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Straying off from a course or way. countable, uncountable
"It was after the complete revelation that he understood the romantic innuendoes with which his childhood had been surrounded, and of which he had never caught the meaning; they having seemed but part and parcel of the habitual and promiscuous divagations of his too constructive companion. When it came over him that, for years, she had made a fool of him, to himself and to others, he could have beaten her, for grief and shame […]"
- 2 a turning aside (of your course or attention or concern) wordnet
- 3 Incoherent or wandering speech and thought. countable, uncountable
- 4 a message that departs from the main subject wordnet
Example
More examples"It was after the complete revelation that he understood the romantic innuendoes with which his childhood had been surrounded, and of which he had never caught the meaning; they having seemed but part and parcel of the habitual and promiscuous divagations of his too constructive companion. When it came over him that, for years, she had made a fool of him, to himself and to others, he could have beaten her, for grief and shame […]"
Etymology
Nominalization of divagate (from the Latin verb divagare) + -ion (from the Latin suffix -io).
More for "divagation"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.