Word.ws English Dictionary

diving

/ˈdaɪ.vɪŋ/

diving is the present participle and gerund of dive.

Noun

diving (countable and uncountable, plural divings)

  1. The action of the verb to dive in any sense.
  2. The sport of jumping into water, often acrobatically.
  3. Descending below the surface of the water to interact with the environment.
  4. The act of pretending to be tripped or brought to the ground by an opposition player in order to secure an undeserved penalty.
    Synonyms:
    flopping

Meaning of dive

Verb

dive (third-person singular simple present dives, present participle diving, simple past dived or (chiefly US and Canada) dove, past participle dived or (chiefly US and Canada) dove or (rare, nonstandard) doven or (rare, nonstandard) diven)

  1. (intransitive) To swim under water.
    • He dove in the water to save her.
  2. (intransitive) To jump into water head-first.
    • It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them.1826, Richard Whately, Elements of Logic
  3. (intransitive) To jump headfirst toward the ground or into another substance.
    • to dive into home plate
  4. (intransitive) To descend sharply or steeply.
    • [the Hammersmith & City at Paddington]: There it dived underground, eventually enabling its train services to run over, and be entangled with, the easterly extensions of the Metropolitan and the District.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 49
  5. (intransitive) To lose altitude quickly by pointing downwards, as with a bird or aircraft.
  6. (especially, intransitive) To undertake with enthusiasm.
    • She dove right in and started making improvements.

See all 19 meanings of dive

Adjective

diving (not comparable)

  1. That or who dives or dive.

Synonyms of diving

Forms of diving

pluraldivings

Origin of diving

By surface analysis, dive + -ing.

Words formed from diving

Phrases with diving

33 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with diving

Questions about diving

What does diving mean?
Diving means the action of the verb to dive in any sense.
What is diving the present participle and gerund of?
Diving is the present participle and gerund of dive.
What part of speech is diving?
Diving can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce diving?
Diving is pronounced /ˈdaɪ.vɪŋ/.
What is the plural of diving?
The plural of diving is divings.

Words near diving in the dictionary

  1. divineresses
  2. diviners
  3. divines
  4. divinest
  5. divineth
  6. diving
  7. diving beetle
  8. diving beetles
  9. diving bell
  10. diving bell spider
  11. diving bell spiders

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: diving (page history and authors); dive (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-diving.wav.

Cite this entry: “diving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/diving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.