Which to use
“divine” is an adjective and “diving” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,754
- “divine” frequency rank
- #6,895
- “diving” frequency rank
- 11649
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | divine | diving |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Of or pertaining to a god. | present participle and gerund of dive |
Where the eye mixes divine and diving
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. divine (CVCVCV) and diving (CVCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between divine and diving
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: divine is /dɪˈvaɪn/ while diving is /ˈdaɪ.vɪŋ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “divine” becomes g in “diving”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11649, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
divine is recorded at frequency rank #4,754, classified as anadj, pronounced /dɪˈvaɪn/. diving is at rank #6,895, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈdaɪ.vɪŋ/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 11649, this pair ranks #485,886 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of divine vs diving
Shared letters: dinv. Private to "divine": e. Private to "diving": g.
"divine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "diving" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "divine" for "diving" ever safe?
Frequency check: "divine" vs "diving" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "divine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "diving" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #485,886 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "divine" and "diving" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diving vs dozing". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #485,886 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.