| 释义 |
divergent, a.|dɪˈvɜːdʒənt, daɪ-|
[ad. mod.L. dīvergent-em, pr. pple. of dīvergĕre to diverge: cf. F. divergent (17th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. Proceeding in different directions from each other or from a common point; departing more widely from each other; diverging.
1696Phillips, Divergent, a Term in Opticks, said of the Beams, which having suffered the Refraction, separate one from the other. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. I. 590 Lines..so combined as to meet at certain given points, with the divergent avenues. 1829Southey Sir T. More Ded. x, Central plains, Whence rivers flow divergent. 1869Tyndall Notes Lect. Light §92 If these divergent rays be produced backwards, they will intersect behind the mirror. 1871Darwin Desc. Man II. xix. 345 The Siamese have small noses, with divergent nostrils.
2. transf. and fig.
a. Following different routes, lines of action, or of thought; deviating from each other or from a standard or normal course or type.
1801W. Dupré Neolog. Fr. Dict. 93 Questions divergent (or which diverge) from themselves. 1832Southey in Q. Rev. XLVIII. 240 Thence arise divergent opinions. 1875Gladstone Glean. (1879) VI. iii. 144 Were the question between historical Christianity and systems opposed to or divergent from it.
b. Psychol. Of thinking, reasoning, etc.: of a kind that produces a wide variety of possible answers to a problem. So diˈverger, one who thinks in this way.
1956J. P. Guilford in Psychol. Bull. LIII. iv. 274 Production factors fall into two groups—convergent-thinking factors and divergent-thinking factors. Such a distinction seems not to have been emphasized in prior literature on thinking. 1966L. Hudson Contrary Imaginations iii. 38 With new tests, it seems vital that we should avoid question-begging if we possibly can. For this reason, I propose to name them technically. The ‘High IQ’ I shall call a converger; the ‘High Creative’, a diverger, and the two styles of reasoning, convergent and divergent, respectively. 1970Nature 25 July 420/2 If you are better at conventional IQ tests than at ‘open-ended’ tests..you are a converger; if not, you are a diverger.
3. Of, pertaining to, characterized or produced by, divergence.
(divergent squint: strabismus in which the axes of the eyes diverge.)
1831Brewster Optics iv. 34 The divergent point of diverging rays. 1870T. Holmes Surg. (ed. 2) III. 248 Strabismus may be either convergent or divergent. 1879[see diverge v. 2].
4. Math. Applied to an infinite series of terms, the sum of which becomes indefinitely greater as more and more terms are taken. (Opp. to convergent a. 2.)
Sometimes used to include oscillatory series, or such as oscillate from one value to another, as the series of 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1.., the sum of which oscillates between 0 and 1.
1837Penny Cycl. VII. 486/1 Series of increasing terms are certainly divergent. 1858Todhunter Algebra xl. §557 An infinite series in which all the terms are of the same sign is divergent if each term is greater than some assigned finite quantity however small. |