Dived

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈdaɪ̯vd/

Definitions

1. Moved headfirst or plunged into water or through the air in a controlled way
2. Performed the action of entering water by jumping or plunging forward
3. Executed a motion of jumping or falling quickly downward, especially into water

Etymology: The past tense "dived" sits on a split in Old English. Two verbs with different histories were both heading toward the same modern sense. One, "dȳfan", was a transitive weak verb meaning "to dip, immerse", going back to a Proto-Germanic root shared with Icelandic "dýfa". The other, "dūfan", was an intransitive strong verb meaning "to duck, dive, sink, penetrate", with a past participle "ġedofen". Over the Middle English period these merged into a single verb, "diven" or "duven", and the modern word inherits both its pattern of past forms and its sense of plunging under water from that blend. The verb "dive" is related to "deep" and "dip", which makes sense once you see the shared idea of going down into something. The past tense "dived" is the regular weak form that English settled on, though older writers also used "dove", a form that survives in American English alongside "dived".

Synonyms: plunged, submerged, descended, dipped, dove

Antonyms: ascended, surfed, floated, hovered, remained