Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use divert in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Divert means to turn aside from a course. Example: “The workers diverted the stream away from the road.”

Examples of divert by meaning

verbTo turn aside from a course.

  • The workers diverted the stream away from the road.
  • Many of the remaining trains have been retimed and where possible freight trains have also been diverted to alternative routes.1960 February, R. C. Riley, “The London-Birmingham services - Past, Present and Future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 99
  • Until the main road from Hatfield to Hertford was diverted a few years ago, heavy lorries trundling through the village sometimes knocked chunks off corner buildings, but now the village has regained much of its former tranquillity.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 224, about Hertingfordbury

verbTo distract.

  • Don't let him divert your attention; keep your eye on the ball.

verbTo entertain or amuse (by diverting the attention).

  • But somehow, despite wooden, unfunny dialogue, rigid characterization, and the dreadful mindless meaninglessness of it all, Good News manages to divert us for its three hours.1973 December 29, Jonathan Cross, “The Fag In The Fifth Row”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 28, page 4

More sentences with divert

  • In the July 6 flood, most sub-districts are dominated by diverted commuters and the unaffected population.2021 March, Xiaoyan Liu, Saini Yang, Tao Ye, Rui An, Cuizhen Chen, “A new approach to estimating flood-affected populations by combining…. From the entry Guanshan
  • The government also uses such state homophobia to divert public attention from domestic problems.2018 January, Nikita Sleptcov, “Political Homophobia as a State Strategy in Russia”, in Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy…. From the entry heteronationalism
  • The diverted or perverse way is also not an easy path to walk.2013, Robert Saucy, Minding the Heart: The Way of Spiritual Transformation. From the entry perverse
  • Here more than forty thousand agriculture laborers had been diverted to make iron and steel.2013, Xun Zhou, “Unnatural Disasters”, in Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, 1958-1962: An Oral History, Yale University Press…. From the entry Pingdingshan
  • Unless she diverted on the ten minute walk home, she’ll have got home at about half past.2012, Penny Freedman, All The Daughters. From the entry will
  • Visitors to Sinuiju are often diverted to the city of Uiju, further north along the Amnok.2008, Robert Willoughby, “The Border with China and Beyond”, in North Korea (Bradt Travel Guides), 2nd edition, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 204. From the entry Uiju
  • "Well done!" Chance said, and immediately diverted his attention from the pridesome youth.2003, Lynn Abbey, Thieves' World. From the entry pridesome
  • “Hey, Barbs—you can’t let stuff like this divert your energy, you know?1998 March, S. M. Stirling, Island in the Sea of Time (Nantucket series; 1), New York, N.Y.: New American Library, →ISBN, page 291. From the entry barbs
  • The catheters insure patency, prevent reflux, and temporarily divert urine from the suture line.1954 February 15, Oswald S. Lowsley, Thomas H. Johnson, Antonio E. Rueda, “Operation for Urinary Diversion”, in Modern Medicine, volume…. From the entry ureteroproctostomy
  • More maize is being grown and diverted to ethanol distillation.2026 July 13, Yogendra Pratap, “The ethanol dilemma! Accelerated ethanol-blend rollout leaves 200 million consumers in the lurch”, in…. From the entry foodgrain
  • The substorm current wedge diverts part of the neutral sheet current along magnetic field lines through the ionosphere.2022, Wolfgang Baumjohann, Rudolf A Treumann, Basic Space Plasma Physics, page 117. From the entry substorm current wedge
  • We need global solidarity, a Greta Thunbergian global network that would help halt and divert the process of climate change.2022 January 19, Rein Raud, quotee, translated by Kristi Lahne, “How to get rid of a nightmare? | A discussion.”, in Medium (Library of…. From the entry Greta Thunbergian
  • Some of us are so deep in the countryside that delivery vans must divert their routes to seek us out.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian. From the entry seek out
  • The supplies meant for the Resistance had to be diverted at the last moment, so we never received them.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Reply Message: "Low Supplies?". From the entry dwindling
  • The amount of first flush that should be diverted varies considerably depending on how much dust has accumulated on a roof.2016, Gary Grant, The Water Sensitive City, →ISBN, page 133. From the entry first flush
  • At one point the Australian Postmaster refused to handle outgoing Hutt River mail, forcing it to be diverted via Canada.2006 September, John Ryan, George Dunford, Simon Sellars, Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations, Lonely Planet…. From the entry Hutt River
  • But the committeemen were not to be diverted by the long-winded, jargonized explanations of the Nielsen modus operandi.1963 April 12, “Television: Selling Confusion”, in Time. From the entry jargonize
  • Diesel traction on the "Golden Arrow" - diverted via Chatham because of Sunday engineering work in Sevenoaks Tunnel.1961 April, Trains Illustrated, page 250, photo caption. From the entry steam-heat
  • Man, I've diverted myself whiles with the science of the stars, and can make a shape at calculating a nativity.1927, John Buchan, Witch Wood, published 1988, page 14. From the entry whiles
  • The attention of the hunters was diverted.1917, Henry Handel Richardson, Australia Felix. From the entry foxly
  • I must now divert your attention into a side track.1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados. From the entry side track
  • It diverted him to speculate as to how much weight each of the steers would probably put on by spring.1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, chapter 2. From the entry steer
  • Luonan and Guanshan are the most seriously affected sub-districts, as they have the largest percentages and numbers of diverted and disconnected commuters.2021 March, Xiaoyan Liu, Saini Yang, Tao Ye, Rui An, Cuizhen Chen, “A new approach to estimating flood-affected populations by combining…. From the entry Guanshan
  • From a societal perspective, rent seeking is irrational as resources are wasted by being diverted away from social accumulation for the sake of individual accumulation.2020, Kurt von Seekamm Jr., Rent Seeking and Human Capital. From the entry rent-seeking
  • Caleb continued to hold his gaze until the familiar grating of the dayshields lowering diverted his attention back over to the terrace doors.2013, Lindsay J. Pryor, Blood Roses. From the entry dayshield
  • When "Broken Arrow" was heard on the radio nets, all available aircraft were diverted to provide close air support for the endangered command.2010, Danny W. Davis, The Phinehas Priesthood, →ISBN. From the entry broken arrow
  • The state could, however, divert offenders into drug-treatment programs and other nonprison environments, which are less expensive than incarceration and better at rehabilitation.2009 August 11, “The Chino Prison Riot”, in New York Times. From the entry nonprison
  • All the fat, skin, bones and unusables from the slaughter house went to the soap factory, and got diverted to feed a company of soldiers.2004, Frank Kolondra, Never a Straight Path, page 176. From the entry unusable
  • To divert me I had only the Times, an article I was editing, and my own reflection, pensive and sleepy, framed in the sun-shot window.1997, Robert Cohen, The Here and Now, page 15. From the entry sun-shot
  • The problem with the squeaky-wheel system is that the production of the squeaking diverts efforts from other activities, potentially of more benefit to the firm.1993, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Managing With Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations, Harvard Business Press, →ISBN, page 406. From the entry squeaky wheel system
  • Services had to be diverted, damaged lines restored, and materials for coastal defence and relief supplies conveyed to the stricken areas with all possible speed.1953 April, “Flood Damage on British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 217. From the entry stricken
  • He had seen this method adopted by schoolboys, when the journey- money provided by thoughtful parents had been diverted to other and better ends.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC. From the entry squeeze
  • The 'slab track' system negates the need to divert utilities such as gas pipes and telecoms cables by only digging down to a depth of 30cm.2025 June 25, “Network News: Public trials of Coventry's Very Light Rail system”, in RAIL, number 1038, page 10. From the entry utility
  • For Lefevre, the resugence of trufficulture is exciting because it is a way to produce a cash crop from a forested landscape and divert private capital into environmental resoration.2020, Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life, page 47. From the entry trufficulture
  • “I prefer my husband to be surrounded by people who can divert his mind from the problems of the world.” “You sure picked the right crowd,” I said.2010 November 15, Jerry Rannow, Die Laughing, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 122. From the entry lukecool

Meaning of divert

  1. verb To turn aside from a course.
  2. verb To distract.
  3. verb To entertain or amuse (by diverting the attention).

Full definition of divert

Questions about divert in a sentence

How do you use divert in a sentence?
Divert is used as a verb. For example: “The workers diverted the stream away from the road.”
What is a short sentence with divert?
“The attention of the hunters was diverted.”
What does divert mean?
Divert means to turn aside from a course.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: divert (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use divert in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/divert. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.