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near in value to a fixed quantity, which is called the sum of the series; -- opposed to a diverging series.

To apply to any use by a diversion from the proper or intended use; to appropriate dishonestly or illegally. When a bystander took a coin to get it changed, and converted it, [it was] held no larceny. Cooley.

To checker; to diversify, as in heraldic counterchanging. See Counterchaged, a., 2. With-elms, that counterchange the floor Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright. Tennyson.

To brood or sit on; to incubate. While the hen is covering her eggs, the male . . . diverts her with his songs. Addison.

ord, to which another finds a rhyme. I saw in one corner . . . a cluster of men and women,diverting themselves with a game at crambo. I heard several double rhymes . . . which raised a great deal of mirth. Addison.

dic and painful involuntary contraction of a muscle or muscles, as of the leg. The cramp, divers nights, gripeth him in his legs. Sir T. More. Cramp bone, the patella of a sheep; -- formerly used as a charm for the cramp. Halliwell. "He could turn cramp bones into chess men." Dickens. -- Cramp ring, a ring formerly su…

Worthy of belief. [Obs.] Divers creditable witnesses deposed. Ludlow.

quickness in diving; -- called also dapchick, dobchick, dipchick, didapper, dobber, devil-diver, hell-diver, and pied-billed grebe.

Any of several valuable estates of the Egyptian khedive or his family. The most important are the Da"i*ra Sa"ni*eh, or Sa"ni*yeh, and the Da"i*ra Khas"sa, administered by the khedive's European bondholders, and known collectively as the Daira, or the Daira estates.

To beguile; to amuse, so as to divert the attention; to while away; to take away as if by deception. These occupations oftentimes deceived The listless hour. Wordsworth.

To turn from, or divest of, Christianity.

Separated or broken up; -- said of the crest of birds when the feathers are divergent.

To divest of the bark, husk, or exterior coating; to husk; to peel; to hull. "Great barley dried and decorticated." Arbuthnot.

To divest of human qualities, such as pity, tenderness, etc.; as, dehumanizing influences.

Addicted to pleasure; luxurious; voluptuous; alluring. [R.] Dives, for his delicate life, to the devil went. Piers Plowman. Haarlem is a very delicate town. Evelyn.

To divest or deprive of national character or rights. Bonaparte's decree denationalizes, as he calls it, all ships that have touched at a British port. Cobbett. An expatriated, denationalized race. G. Eliot.

To divest of all covering; to make bare or naked; to strip; to divest; as, to denude one of clothing, or lands.

To lay down; to divest one's self of; to lay aside. [Obs.] Thus when the state one Edward did depose, A greater Edward in his room arose. Dryden.

The act of depriving, dispossessing, or bereaving; the act of deposing or divesting of some dignity.

To dispossess; to bereave; to divest; to hinder from possessing; to debar; to shut out from; -- with a remoter object, usually preceded by of. God hath deprived her of wisdom. Job xxxix. 17. It was seldom that anger deprived him of power over himself. Macaulay.