divot means A torn-up piece of turf, especially by a golf club in making a stroke or by a horse's hoof. It carries an Arena rating of 1506, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, divot ranks #851 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #6,156 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #7,708 of 42,747 for Qualifying, #10,836 of 17,131 for Scariest Words.
divot is pronounced /ˈdɪvət/.
Why “divot” is a great word
A piece of turf torn from the ground, especially by the stroke of a club or the strike of a hoof. From Scots (1435, earliest form 'duvat(e)'), from Scottish Gaelic 'dubhad', a reduced form of 'dubh-fhàd', literally 'black sod' (from 'dubh' 'black' + 'fàd' 'sod, turf'), first attested in English in the 1530s. Unlike 'sod', a civilised, squared-off unit for planting or thatching, or 'depression', a vague hollow in any terrain, a divot is a specific wound, an unintended excision. It is the dark, damp clod flung into the fairway's morning air; the ragged scar left behind on the veldt; the upturned glimpse of roots and earth that, for a moment, reveals the hidden skin of the world—a small monument to all our passing disturbances.
Etymology
1530s, Scots divot (“turf”), also spelt devat, diffat, and the earliest form (1435), duvat(e), from Scottish Gaelic dubhad, a reduced form of dubh-fhàd, literally “black sod” (compare fàl (“turf, sod”)).
noun
- A torn-up piece of turf, especially by a golf club in making a stroke or by a horse's hoof.e.g.“Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.” — 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 8, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, page 155:
- A disruption in an otherwise smooth contour.e.g.“In these coldest hours before dawn, from three until six, I take up my knife again and hack at the chockstone. I continue to make minimal but visible progress in the divot.” — 2004, Aron Ralston, 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Simon and Schuster, published 2011, page 68:
- A drop in a graph between two linear portions (example)
verb
- To tear up pieces of turf from, especially with a golf club in making a stroke.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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