Other forms: diverted, diverting, diverts
To divert something is to turn it off the path it was already on. A road closed for works and the traffic sent round three side streets; a plane heading for Dublin that comes down in Shannon instead.
It works on anything that flows: rivers, money, traffic, attention, blame. Auditors say funds were diverted when money meant for one thing paid for another, and diverting attention is a magician's entire trade. The noun is diversion, which does double duty as the marked route round the roadworks and as a distraction, the noise at the front door while somebody went in the back. An older sense means to amuse, and it survives in diverting, which describes a book or an evening that passes the time pleasantly. The prepositions are steady: you divert something FROM one course TO another.
1verbdivertTo change the course or direction of something.
“Police diverted traffic away from the flooded bridge.”
synonyms: redirect, reroute
2verbmoneyTo use money or resources for something other than what they were meant for.
“The audit found that grant money had been diverted to cover salaries.”
3verbdistractTo draw someone's attention away from something.
“The shouting diverted attention from what was happening behind the counter.”
synonyms: distract
4verbamuseTo amuse or entertain someone, an older use that survives in diverting.
“The stories diverted the children for a full hour.”
Also accepted in games: redirect
Divert is Latin di-, apart, plus vertere, to turn, so the word means to turn something aside. It reached English through Old French divertir and Middle English diverten. The root wert- means to turn, and the whole family keeps that shape: divert, diversion, divergence, all of them about something taken off its line.
Proto-Indo-European
*wert-
Latin
di- — apart
Old French
divertir — to turn or go different ways, part, separate, divert
Middle English
diverten
English, today
divert
Built from
From Middle English diverten, Old French divertir (“to turn or go different ways, part, separate, divert”), from Latin di- (“apart”) + vertere (“to turn”); see verse.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA