divinity
(dɪˈvɪnɪtɪ)
Forms: 4–6 de-, dy-, divinite, 4–7 -tie.
[ME. de-, divinite, a. OF. devinité, -eté, -iteit (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.) theology, ad. L. dīvīnitāt-em godhead, divination, excellence, f. dīvīn-us divine: see -ity.]
1. The character or quality of being divine; divineness, godhood; divine nature; Deity, Godhead.
| c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. i. pr. iv. 7 (Camb. MS.) Thow desputedest..towching deuynyte and mankynde. c 1450 Mirour Saluacioun 272 In crist warre flesshe and sawle and verray divinitee. 1581 Fulke in Confer. iii. (1584) Y, The humanitie of Christ after it was assumpted by the Diuinitie, was absorpte of the same. c 1610–15 Women Saints, Agnes (1886) 147 Diuinitie dwelleth not in stones but in heauen. 1667 Milton P.L. ix. 1010 They feel Divinitie within them breeding wings. 1784 Cowper Task vi. 877 The veil is rent..That hides divinity from mortal eyes. 1884 Ruskin Pleas. Eng. 17 note, Arianism consists not in asserting the subjection of the Son to the Father, but in denying the subjected Divinity. |
2. a. concr. A divine being; a god, a deity. the Divinity: the Deity, the Supreme Being, God.
| c 1386 Chaucer Sec. Nun's T. 316 Whil we seken thilke diuinitee That is yhid in heuene. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. i. (1495) 8 Cryst Iesus very god and man is..moost blessyd and inestymable dyuynyte or deyte for all mankynde. 1602 Shakes. Ham. v. ii. 10 There's a Diuinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. 1777 Robertson Hist. Amer. (1778) II. vii. 302 Its divinities were clothed with terror. 1796 H. Hunter tr. St. Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) II. 76 It's last and only end is the Divinity himself. 1865 Seeley Ecce Homo iv. (ed. 8) 31 Their national Divinity had been their king. 1875 Whitney Life Lang. v. 80 Mercury..the swift messenger of the divinities. |
b. fig. An object of adoration, an adorable being.
| 1648 Boyle Seraph. Love vi. (1700) 49 A Lover, naming what he worships, a Divinity. 1749 Smollett Gil Blas iii. ix, I perceived the divinity seated on a large sattin couch—in a genteel deshabille. 1849 Thackeray Pendennis vii, Composing a most flaming and conceited copy of verses to his divinity. |
3. Divine quality, virtue, or power; god-likeness, divineness.
| 1510–20 Everyman in Hazl. Dodsley I. 133 These seven..Gracious sacraments of high divinity. 1590 Spenser F.Q. iii. v. 34 The goodly Maide, ful of divinities And gifts of heavenly grace. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. v. i. 3 There is Diuinity in odde Numbers, either in natiuity, chance, or death. 1681–6 J. Scott Chr. Life (1747) III. 71 These miraculous Signs of the Divinity of the Christian Doctrine. 1847 Tennyson Princ. iii. 207 To lift the woman's fall'n divinity Upon an even pedestal with man. |
4. a. The science of divine things; the science that deals with the nature and attributes of God, His relations with mankind, etc.; theology; the theological faculty in Universities. (The earliest sense in English.)
divinity hall, (Scotland, etc.), a theological hall or college.
| c 1305 Edmund Conf. 238 in E.E.P. (1862) 77 To diuinite as god wolde þis gode man him drouȝ. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) I. 5 Of þe þre vertues of deuynyte [theologicarum virtutum]. c 1400 Mandeville (1839) xiii. 144 Athanasius was a gret Doctour of Dyvynytee. 1439 E.E. Wills (1882) 118, I woll that the maister of devenyte haue xx li. 1556 Chron. Gr. Friars (Camden) 40 William Thurston abbot of Fowntens and bachelar of devinite..hongyd, heddyd and qwarterd. 1599 Shakes. Hen. V, i. i. 38 Heare him but reason in Diuinitie. 1690 Locke Govt. ii. viii. §112 They never dream'd of Monarchy being Jure Divino..till it was revealed to us in the Divinity of this last Age. 1722 De Foe Moll Flanders (1840) 303 The ordinary of Newgate..talked a little in his way, but all his divinity ran upon confessing my crime, as he called it. 1833 Coleridge Table-t. 14 Mar., Divinity is essentially the first of the professions, because it is necessary for all at all times. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. iv. 498 Three poor labouring men, deeply imbued with this unamiable divinity. |
b. Applied also to the theological systems of heathen nations or philosophers.
| 1669 Gale Crt. Gentiles i. i. ii. 12 Plato acknowlegeth that he received the..choicest of his Divinitie from the Phenicians. 1754 Sherlock Disc. (1759) I. iv. 145 The Religion and Divinity of the Vulgar in the Days of Heathenism. 1855 Milman Lat. Chr. (1864) II. iv. vii. 365 He..was versed in all the divinity of the Greeks. |
† 5. = divination 1. Obs. rare.
| 1481 Caxton Myrr. i. xiii. 39 By this Arte and science [Astronomye] were first emprysed..alle other sciences of decrees and of dyuinyte. 1601 Holland Pliny I. 28 This diuinitie or fore-telling of Anaxagoras. |
6. attrib. (esp. in reference to the Faculty of Divinity at the Universities), as divinity act, divinity book, divinity chair, divinity lecture, divinity man, divinity school, etc.; divinity-calf (Bookbinding), dark brown stained calf decorated with blind stamping, without gilding: used for theological works; (Zaehnsdorf, Hist. Bookb. 1895); divinity fudge U.S., a type of home-made fudge.
| 1548 Udall Erasm. Par. Pref. (R.) A full library of all good diuinity-books. a 1555 Latimer Serm. & Rem. (1845) 291 We..appointed you to appear before us..in the divinity school, a place for disputations. 1641 ‘Smectymnuus’ Answ. v. (1653) 22 Such as were able to preach, or keepe a Divinitie Act. 1670 Eachard Cont. Clergy 97 If a young divinity-intender has but got a sermon of his own or of his father's..he gets a qualification. c 1680 Hickeringill Wks. (1716) I. 79 The Tongues and Pens of the thriving Divinity-men. 1691–8 Norris Pract. Disc. (1711) III. 83 Acceptable..from the Pulpit as from a Divinity-Chair. 1709 Hearne Collect. 6 Nov., The Divinity-Bedell's Staff. 1785 J. Trusler Mod. Times I. 138 A register office for parsons, a kind of divinity-shop..for hiring of preachers. 1846 McCulloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) II. 341 Attendance on divinity lectures is requisite. 1913 E. H. Glover ‘Dame Curtsey's’ Bk. Candy Making 34 Divinity Fudge. Three and one-half cups of granulated sugar, one-half cup of 90 per cent corn syrup, [etc.]. 1970 New Yorker 5 Sept. 36/3 My mother stayed out of the kitchen as much as possible, except for making divinity fudge perhaps once a year. |