divers

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 17, 2021 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>divers</strong> &#149; \DYE-verz\&nbsp; &#149; <em>adjective</em><br /> <p><strong>:</strong> of an indefinite number greater than one <strong>:</strong> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/various">various</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"Thus, by <em>divers</em> little <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/makeshift#h1">makeshifts</a>, in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated '<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hook#by-hook-or-by-crook">by hook and by crook</a>,' the worthy <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedagogue">pedagogue</a> got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it." — <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41/41-h/41-h.htm">Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," 1820</a></p> <p>"Carrick Venn was an original, a man of restless curious tastes, and his place, on a Sunday, was often full of visitors: a cheerful crowd of journalists, scribblers, painters, experimenters in <em>divers</em> forms of expression." — <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4514/4514-h/4514-h.htm">Edith Wharton, "The Bolted Door," 1909</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p><em>Divers</em> is not a misspelling of <em><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diverse">diverse</a></em>—it is a word in its own right. Both words come from Latin <em>diversus</em>, meaning "turning in opposite directions," and both historically could be pronounced as either DYE-verz (like the plural of the noun <em>diver</em>) or dye-VERSS. <em>Divers</em> (now pronounced more frequently as DYE-verz) is typically used before a plural noun to indicate an unspecified quantity ("a certain secret drawer in