divagation

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See also: Divagation

English

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Etymology

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Nominalization of divagate (from the Latin verb divagare) + -ion (from the Latin suffix -io).

Noun

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divagation (countable and uncountable, plural divagations)

  1. Straying off from a course or way.
    • 1886, Henry James, The Princess Casamassima, London: Macmillan and Co.:
      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 []
    • 1905, Francis Lynde, A Fool for Love, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, page 52:
      But this was a divagation, and he pulled himself back to the askings of the moment
  2. (medicine) Incoherent or wandering speech and thought.
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Anagrams

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French

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Etymology

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From divaguer +‎ -ation.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /di.va.ɡa.sjɔ̃/
  • Audio:(file)

Noun

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divagation f (plural divagations)

  1. divagation
  2. wandering, rambling
  3. raving

Further reading

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