DIVINITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does divinity mean? 

• DIVINITY (noun)
  The noun DIVINITY has 4 senses:

1. any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force

2. the quality of being divine

3. white creamy fudge made with egg whites

4. the rational and systematic study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truth

  Familiarity information: DIVINITY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DIVINITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

deity; divinity; god; immortal

Hypernyms ("divinity" is a kind of...):

spiritual being; supernatural being (an incorporeal being believed to have powers to affect the course of human events)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "divinity"):

Japanese deity (a deity worshipped by the Japanese)

snake god; zombi; zombie (a god of voodoo cults of African origin worshipped especially in West Indies)

goddess (a female deity)

earth-god; earth god (a god of fertility and vegetation)

demiurge (a subordinate deity, in some philosophies the creator of the universe)

Graeco-Roman deity; Greco-Roman deity (a deity of classical mythology)

Greek deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Greeks)

Roman deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Romans)

Norse deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Norsemen)

Teutonic deity ((German mythology) a deity worshipped by the ancient Teutons)

Anglo-Saxon deity ((Anglo-Saxon mythology) a deity worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons)

Phrygian deity (deity of the ancient Phrygians of west central Asia Minor)

saint (a person who has died and has been declared a saint by canonization)

god of war; war god (a god worshipped as giving victory in war)

Chinese deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Chinese)

Persian deity (a deity worshiped by the ancient Persians)

Hindu deity (a deity worshipped by the Hindus)

Semitic deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Semites)

Egyptian deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Egyptians)

Celtic deity (a deity worshipped by the Celts)

sun god (a god that personifies the sun or is otherwise associated with the sun)

sea god (a deity that personifies the sea and is usually believed to live in or to control the sea)

daemon; demigod (a person who is part mortal and part god)

Instance hyponyms:

Arhant; Arhat; lohan (a Buddhist who has attained nirvana)

Boddhisatva; Bodhisattva (Buddhist worthy of nirvana who postpones it to help others)

Morpheus (the Roman god of sleep and dreams)

Quetzalcoatl (an Aztec deity represented as a plumed serpent)

Hypnos ((Greek mythology) the Greek god of sleep; the son of Nyx)

Demogorgon ((Greek mythology) a mysterious and terrifying deity of the underworld)

Holonyms ("divinity" is a member of...):

pantheon (all the gods of a religion)

Derivation:

divine (being or having the nature of a god)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being divine

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

ancient Egyptians believed in the divinity of the Pharaohs

Hypernyms ("divinity" is a kind of...):

quality (an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone)

Derivation:

divine (devoted to or in the service or worship of a deity)

Sense 3

Meaning:

White creamy fudge made with egg whites

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Synonyms:

divinity; divinity fudge

Hypernyms ("divinity" is a kind of...):

fudge (soft creamy candy)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The rational and systematic study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

divinity; theology

Hypernyms ("divinity" is a kind of...):

bailiwick; discipline; field; field of study; study; subject; subject area; subject field (a branch of knowledge)

Domain member category:

theological system; theology (a particular system or school of religious beliefs and teachings)

minor; venial (warranting only temporal punishment)

deadly; mortal (involving loss of divine grace or spiritual death)

universalist; universalistic (of or relating to or tending toward universalism)

fundamentalist; fundamentalistic (of or relating to or characteristic of Protestant fundamentalism or its adherents)

catechetic; catechetical (of or relating to or involving catechesis)

redemption; salvation ((theology) the act of delivering from sin or saving from evil)

theanthropism ((theology) the doctrine that Jesus was a union of the human and the divine)

divine guidance; inspiration ((theology) a special influence of a divinity on the minds of human beings)

purgatory ((theology) in Roman Catholic theology the place where those who have died in a state of grace undergo limited torment to expiate their sins)

limbo ((theology) in Roman Catholicism, the place of unbaptized but innocent or righteous souls (such as infants and virtuous individuals))

theology (the learned profession acquired by specialized courses in religion (usually taught at a college or seminary))

Creation ((theology) God's act of bringing the universe into existence)

foreordination; predestination; predetermination; preordination ((theology) being determined in advance; especially the doctrine (usually associated with Calvin) that God has foreordained every event throughout eternity (including the final salvation of mankind))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "divinity"):

apologetics (the branch of theology that is concerned with the defense of Christian doctrines)

ecclesiology (the branch of theology concerned with the nature and the constitution and the functions of a church)

eschatology (the branch of theology that is concerned with such final things as death and Last Judgment; Heaven and Hell; the ultimate destiny of humankind)

hermeneutics (the branch of theology that deals with principles of exegesis)

homiletics (the branch of theology that deals with sermons and homilies)

liturgics; liturgiology (the study of liturgies)

theodicy (the branch of theology that defends God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil)

angelology (the branch of theology that is concerned with angels)

 Context examples 

Dicon, I fear that your logic is as bad as your philosophy or your divinity—and God wot it would be hard to say a worse word than that for it.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“All's well with him; no fear for a hand that's been shot down in his duty to captain and owner. It mayn't be good divinity, but it's a fact.”

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

For the moment her divinity was shattered.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I go home in a state of unspeakable bliss, and waltz in imagination, all night long, with my arm round the blue waist of my dear divinity.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Not one, however, started with rapturous wonder on beholding her, no whisper of eager inquiry ran round the room, nor was she once called a divinity by anybody.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go soberly and gratefully to bed.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

No, she was a spirit, a divinity, a goddess; such sublimated beauty was not of the earth.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He was impelled to suggest Locksley Hall, and would have done so, had not his vision gripped him again and left him staring at her, the female of his kind, who, out of the primordial ferment, creeping and crawling up the vast ladder of life for a thousand thousand centuries, had emerged on the topmost rung, having become one Ruth, pure, and fair, and divine, and with power to make him know love, and to aspire toward purity, and to desire to taste divinity—him, Martin Eden, who, too, had come up in some amazing fashion from out of the ruck and the mire and the countless mistakes and abortions of unending creation.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)