diverting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of divert.

   Engineers spent months diverting the stream into a new channel.

   Diverting public funds for private use eventually led to her arrest.

   Note

   The spelling is shared with the "amusing" adjective, and an object tells them apart. In diverting the stream or diverting the children, the verb is at work. A diverting evening takes no object and can be graded as more diverting. Every transitive meaning of divert, from rerouting to amusing, carries over to this form, while the old intransitive "digress" sense is obsolete.

2. 2
   adjectivedated

   Amusing and pleasantly distracting; entertaining enough to take one's mind off other things.

   Like a good story that makes a long journey feel short.

   She found his anecdotes thoroughly diverting during the long train ride.

   The evening's entertainment proved diverting, and nobody noticed how late it had grown.

   Similarentertaining, amusing, enjoyable, engaging, absorbing

   Oppositeboring, dull, tedious, tiresome

   Note

   A word with a period air: Jonathan Swift in 1726 writes of a folly that "would be diverting to her Majesty," and the construction still sounds like the drawing room. The amusement it names comes from turning attention aside, the same move as the verb form rerouting a stream. Use it for light, pleasant entertainment, and expect it to read as deliberately old-fashioned.

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