divot

English

Etymology

1530s, Scots divot (“turf”), of unclear origin. The Scots word also appeared as devat, diffat, and the earliest form (1435), duvat(e).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɪvət/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

divot (plural divots)

1. (especially golf) A torn-up piece of turf, especially by a golf club in making a stroke or by a horse's hoof.
   • 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York: Scribner, 1953, Chapter 8, p. 155,^[1]

     Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.

   • 2007, Lewis Crofts, The Pornographer of Vienna, London: Old Street, Chapter 1, p. 4,^[2]

     Soon, thick dark tufts of hair began to spread across his scalp, hanging over his ears, a moor of unruly divots which he was first unable to tame and with time willingly cultivated.

2. A disruption in an otherwise smooth contour.
   • 2004, Aron Ralston, 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Simon and Schuster, published 2011, page 68:

     In these coldest hours before dawn, from three until six, I take up my knife again and hack at the chockstone. I continue to make minimal but visible progress in the divot.

Translations

piece of turf

• Catalan: gleva (ca) f
• Galician: terrón (gl) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: Rasenstück n, Grassode (de) f
• Spanish: chuleta (es) f

a disruption in an otherwise smooth contour

• Russian: вы́емка (ru) (výjemka)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

References

• “divot”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• Fenton, Alexander (1986): The Shape of the Past: Essays in Scottish Ethnology, Volume 2