Nearby Words
noun, plural -ties.
1.
the state or fact of being diverse; difference; unlikeness.
2.
variety; multiformity.
3.
a point of difference.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Diversities
is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
| an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
Etymonline
Word Origin & History
diversity
mid-14c., "quality of being diverse," mostly in a neutral sense, from O.Fr. diversité (12c.) "difference, diversity, unique feature, oddness:" also "wickedness, perversity," from L. diversitatem "contrariety, contradiction, disagreement;" also, as a secondary sense, "difference, diversity" from
EXPANDdiversus "turned different ways," in L.L. "various," pp. of divertere (see divert). Negative meaning, "being contrary to what is agreeable or right; perversity, evil" existed in English from late 15c. but was obsolete from 17c. Diversity as a virtue in a nation is an idea from the rise of modern democracies in the 1790s, where it kept one faction from arrogating all power (but this was not quite the modern sense, as ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, etc. was not the matter in mind):
COLLAPSE
"The dissimilarity in the ingredients which will compose the national government, and still more in the manner in which they will be brought into action in its various branches, must form a powerful obstacle to a concert of views in any partial scheme of elections. There is sufficient diversity in the state of property, in the genius, manners, and habits of the people of the different parts of the Union, to occasion a material diversity of disposition in their representatives towards the different ranks and conditions in society." ["Federalist" #60, Feb. 26, 1788 (Hamilton)]Specific focus (in a positive sense) on race, gender, etc. is from 1992.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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