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Diversify   /daɪvˈərsəfˌaɪ/  /dɪvˈərsəfˌaɪ/   Listen
Diversify

verb
(past & past part. diversified; pres. part. diversifying)
1.
Make (more) diverse.
2.
Spread into new habitats and produce variety or variegate.  Synonym: radiate.
3.
Vary in order to spread risk or to expand.  Synonyms: branch out, broaden.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Diversify" Quotes from Famous Books



... on clear days and spreading her suburbs about her for miles; the Castle rises darkly in the midst; and close by, Arthur's Seat makes a bold figure in the landscape. All around, cultivated fields, and woods, and smoking villages, and white country roads, diversify the uneven surface of the land. Trains crawl slowly abroad upon the railway lines; little ships are tacking in the Firth; the shadow of a mountainous cloud, as large as a parish, travels before the wind; the wind itself ruffles the wood and standing corn, and sends pulses of varying colour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... writers, it would appear that although these Bats live chiefly upon fruits, they occasionally, like many other frugivorous animals, diversify their diet with animal food, devouring insects of various kinds, caterpillars, birds' eggs, and even young birds, while there seems to be some reason to believe that one species even feeds upon shell-fish which it picks up upon ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... a constant surprise to some employers that servants should insist on having the same human wants as themselves. Ladies who yawn in their elegantly furnished parlors, among books and pictures, if they have not company, parties, or opera to diversify the evening, seem astonished and half indignant that cook and chambermaid are more disposed to go out for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs in the kitchen where they have been toiling all day. The pretty chambermaid's anxieties ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... "Have you seen Leontine?"—this last from the name of Leontine Fay, a favourite actress with young people. But, apart from that, my life was as monotonous as ever it had been. The riots and attempts at insurrection which succeeded each other with something very like regularity seemed to diversify it but very little. Yet I did feel a certain excitement the first time I witnessed one of these attempts at sedition. Our evening was just over at the Palais-Royal, and I had gone up to my room, when loud shouts, and an ejaculation ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... advise, at the sitting down to and rising from our tables, at our rising from and going to bed, and in every particular action wherein prayer is used, I would that Christians always make use of the Lord's Prayer, if not alone, yet at least always. The Church may lengthen and diversify prayers, according to the necessity of our instruction, for I know very well that it is always the same in substance and the same thing: but yet such a privilege ought to be given to that prayer, that the people should have it continually in their mouths; for it is most certain that all ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... with their rushing dull roar in my ear, my eye rests on a scene of beauty and quietness. Far away to the northward and westward, and still farther away, stretches an immense plain. Rolling hillocks, like the waves of the sea after a storm, and at long intervals, a few stunted shrubs, alone diversify the prospect. Vast, unmeasured, Nature's unenclosed meadow, the prairie, is spread out! The tall grass waves gently and rustlingly to the breeze; and down upon it settles the moonlight, in a dim silver-gossamer veil, like that which to the mind's eye is ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... named from its position at the outer end of the tunnel which the Romans pierced to make a shorter way between Naples and Puteoli; thence stretched an extensive plain, set in a deep amphitheatre of hills, and bounded by the sea. Vineyards and maizefields, pine-trees and poplars, diversify its surface, and through the midst of it runs a long, straight road, dwindling till it reaches the shore at the hamlet of Bagnoli. Follow the enclosing ridge to the left, to where its slope cuts athwart plain and sea and sky; there close upon the coast lies ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... and peace of mind gave a new interest to everything around me. I sought to diversify my time by as many enjoyments as lay within my reach. Bathing in company with troops of girls formed one of my chief amusements. We sometimes enjoyed the recreation in the waters of a miniature lake, to which the central stream of the valley expanded. This lovely sheet of water ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... of the posterior facade at the fifth. The advantages of such an arrangement are obvious. Banished mostly to the flanks the double ramp left four stages clear both at front and back, providing an ample promenade. On the other three it showed itself just sufficiently to "furnish" the building and diversify its aspect without in any way encumbering it. The whole structure terminated in a chapel placed on the central axis of the tower, and surmounted by a cupola. The inscriptions mention the dome covered with leaves of chiselled gold which crowned at Babylon that temple "to the foundations ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... has reference to one of the most powerful means employed by Nature to diversify species, a means which comes into play whenever the environment changes. The cause of the great diversity shown by animal species is indeed ultimately to be sought in the environment. As the imperfect and earliest forms developed they spread over the earth and invaded the utmost corners ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... air is perfumed with pleasant odours, and every thing that presents itself to the eye gives fresh occasion to the devout admirer to praise and adore the Great Creator, who hath given such wisdom and power to man to diversify nature in such various instances, and (for his own use, pleasure, and profit,) to assist her in all her operations." This worthy clergyman might have applied to the delights of a garden, the sacred words of scripture:—"her ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... season'd it with some furious Particles of the Lion. But upon turning this Plan to and fro in my Thoughts, I observed so many unaccountable Humours in Man, that I did not know out of what Animals to fetch them. Male Souls are diversify'd with so many Characters, that the World has not Variety of Materials sufficient to furnish out their different Tempers and Inclinations. The Creation, with all its Animals and Elements, would not be large enough to supply their ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... region only one-twentieth of which is covered with vegetation. Chains of mountains with snow-capped peaks encircle it, and spurs from the main ranges, together with lesser ridges and isolated elevations, diversify its surface. ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... his individual opinions and doubts expressed in a manner forceful enough to diversify him from a porcine apathy? The pig, secure against the inequalities of fate and weather, wallowed through life with a dull fullness of food as regular as the solar course. Christopher was his wife. Now ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... seek fantasy in these things: he can make that for himself in other and more suitable places. Here the plain facts are enough to feed his spirit and to make it rejoice. The most fantastic theories that diversify the page of written history have sprung from the minds of barren dons, who sit in studies unhindered by any realization of the world, and in whose hands the facts are wooden blocks to be piled up in any shape of the grotesque. Mr. Belloc, with a desire to realize and to ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... to be amusing; an essay may be thoroughly delightful without a single witticism, while a monotone of jokes soon grows tedious. Charge your style with life, and the public will not ask for conundrums. But the profounder your discourse, the greater must necessarily be the effort to refresh and diversify. I have observed, in addressing audiences of children in schools and elsewhere, that there is no fact so grave, no thought so abstract, but you can make it very interesting to the small people, if you will only put in plenty of detail and illustration; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... and rice were the only articles of food to be obtained to diversify our stock fare of pickled pork and salt horse from the neighbouring inhabitants of this northern portion of the domain of the Ruler of the Universe, and Emperor of the Sun, Moon and Stars; for our French allies had so bullied and plundered all the Celestials in the immediate ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... by tradition and published records, that from the earliest times the faint grey and light spots which diversify the face of our satellite excited the wonder and stimulated the curiosity of mankind, giving rise to suppositions more or less crude and erroneous as to their actual nature and significance. It is true that Anaxagoras, five centuries ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger

... Judgment of Hercules (1741), and by the Schoolmistress (1742). In 1745 he undertook the management of his estate, and began, to quote Dr. Johnson's quaint description, 'to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers.' On this estate, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... else that the common work must be regulated. In the latter case, government is established by the very act of regulation; they are establishing justice. If they resolve to adopt private ownership, industry will diversify, they will begin to spread out over the island, and public improvements will be needed, such as those specified above. The conflict of interests will soon necessitate tribunals for the settlement of disputes. And thus government ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... Most free-trade writers concede a limited validity to the claim that protection may be used to encourage infant industries and thus diversify the industries of the country. If the natural resources of a land are adapted to an industry, it may be called into being earlier by a fostering protective tariff. This is merely anticipating and hastening the natural order of progress. In the American colonies the manufactures ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... investment. Growth remained at the high 9% level in 2003 and 2004. The opening of the Caspian Consortium pipeline in 2001, from western Kazakhstan's Tengiz oilfield to the Black Sea, substantially raised export capacity. The country has embarked upon an industrial policy designed to diversify the economy away from overdependence on the oil sector, by developing light industry. Additionally, the policy aims to reduce the influence of foreign investment and foreign personnel; the government has engaged in several disputes with foreign oil companies over ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... father. It was, as we have said, Sunday, and the service of the church had occupied some part of that long day's passing; but the rest had gone by very slowly, especially as the only two events which occurred to break or diversify the time told that there were other persons busy without, in matters regarding which neither Laura nor her father could take the slightest part, but which affected the future fate of both in the highest ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... of shame,) that I owe you a letter upon an old account, I think it my part to write first. This, indeed, I do not only from complaisance but from interest; for living on in the old way, I am very glad of a correspondent so capable as yourself, to diversify the hours. You have, at present, too many novelties about you to need any help from me to drive along ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... campaign, large-scale unemployment, a shortage of housing, unreliable electrical and water supplies, government inefficiencies and corruption, and the continuing - although significantly degraded - activities of extremist militants. Algeria must also diversify its petroleum-based economy, which has yielded a large cash reserve but which has not been used to redress Algeria's ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... to the planters far greater leisure than they had possessed in the earlier part of the colony's existence, and they made use of this leisure to cultivate their minds and to diversify their interests. It is only in this way that we can fully explain why the aristocrat surrounded himself with a large library, indulged in the delicate art of music, beautified his home with handsome paintings, and revelled in the dance, in races or the fox hunt. This ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... but has ceded the honour of naming the battle to its more euphonious neighbour. Gaugamela is situate in one of the wide plains that lie between the Tigris and the mountains of Kurdistan. A few undulating hillocks diversify the surface of this sandy track; but the ground is generally level, and admirably qualified for the evolutions of cavalry, and also calculated to give the larger of two armies the full advantage ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... self-assertive. Its aim is not to produce edifices complete and satisfying in their own proportions but rather to harmonize buildings with landscape, to adjust courts and pavilions to the slope of the hillside and diversify the groves of fir and bamboo with shrines and towers as fantastic and yet as natural as the mountain boulders. The reader who wishes to know more of them should consult Johnston's Buddhist China, a work which combines in a rare degree ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... acquired,—or because they bring no wisdom to the conduct of life, but dwell in smoky huts, eat unhealthy food, go from starvation to plethora and from plethora to starvation again, exchange the indolent lethargy which is the law of savage life for the frantic struggles of war or the chase which diversify and break up its monotony. Allow the objection; and then what have we accomplished, but carrying the argument one step back? For what are self-control and self-care, but the just fruits of intelligence? But in truth it is a combination of all these influences, and not any of them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... very foolish and childish to a modern audience, but they helped to enliven and diversify the lives of our more ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... produced, or the different qualities that may be remarked: all these varieties in man flow from the individual properties of his soul, or from the particular modification of his brain. It is thus, that wit, imagination, sensibility, talents, &c. diversify to infinity the differences that are to be found in man. It is thus, that some are called good, others wicked; some are denominated virtuous, others vicious; some are ranked as learned, others as ignorant; some are considered reasonable, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... diversify my subject, and make it as amusing as possible, I have between the sketches introduced a few small poems, all written during my residence in Canada, and descriptive of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... and more rocky. Numerous dwellings cut in the rocky face of the hills remind one of the same appearance on the borders of the Loire; but in no other respect can the clay-coloured river claim resemblance with that crystal though sand-encumbered stream. Several bold rocks diversify the prospect here,—one called the Roque-de-Tau, and another ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... care to diversify my romance with sighs and sentimental reflections, and it appeared to affect him exceedingly. He condoled with me, he tried to console me; he gave me the most flattering hopes, and he promised to serve me to the utmost of his power, and with all his ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... [39] but each, after their own, allowed a just preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped the refinement of manners; and her speech could diversify the fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate people. The monuments ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... stronger, richer, fresher, and more original. As an English critic, writing pleasantly of him and his work, in the London Spectator said lately: "His books are delightful reading, with no monotony except a monotony of brilliance which an occasional lapse into dulness would almost diversify." ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various



Words linked to "Diversify" :   variegate, change, branch out, diversity, radiate, specialise, vary, diversification, alter, motley, specialize, modify



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