How to Use divert in a Sentence

divert

verb
  • The stream was diverted toward the farmland.
  • Police diverted traffic to a side street.
  • He lied to divert attention from the real situation.
  • They're only proposing the law to divert attention from important issues.
  • They were charged with illegally diverting public funds for private use.
  • But when used correctly, the bags are highly effective at diverting water from buildings and other areas.
    George Petras, USA TODAY, 8 Oct. 2024
  • These missiles are scarce and expensive, and diverting one from the campaign against Ukraine’s cities suggests this was a high priority target.
    David Hambling, Forbes, 8 Oct. 2024
  • Wang created the software code that allowed Alameda to divert FTX customer funds.
    Ken Sweet, Chicago Tribune, 22 Dec. 2022
  • The swap may have been an effort by Putin’s government to divert attention from Russia’s flailing war efforts in Ukraine.
    Peter Baker, BostonGlobe.com, 9 Dec. 2022
  • To deal with droughts, municipalities like some in California have allowed farmers to divert so much water from rivers that stretches in urban areas have dried up.
    Ciara Nugent, Time, 21 Dec. 2022
  • The devastation from the floodwaters forced Germany to divert thousands of troops to the repair efforts over the months that followed and provided a huge boost to British morale.
    Richard Goldstein, BostonGlobe.com, 9 Dec. 2022
  • This would allow marketing to divert their attention without penalization and sales to get critical conversion assets like case studies and product demos.
    Kelly Grover, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2022
  • Some friends had to sit and watch it with me: I would not be diverted.
    Hamish Bowles, Vogue, 25 Apr. 2024
  • The crew was able to restore the flow of fuel and the flight was diverted to Portland, Oregon.
    Patrick Smith, NBC News, 3 Nov. 2023
  • In six of those cases, airplanes had to divert to avoid hitting the drone, Vinograd said.
    Luke Barr, ABC News, 21 Nov. 2023
  • The city could end up diverting up to 8.2 million gallons of lake water per day.
    Todd Richmond, Chicago Tribune, 14 Sep. 2023
  • Civilian airports have been closed in Iran and flights from the Persian Gulf were diverted.
    USA TODAY, 19 Apr. 2024
  • Some of the floats, bands and balloons appeared to be diverted to avoid the protesters who had glued themselves to the pavement.
    Timothy Bella, Washington Post, 24 Nov. 2023
  • But for much of her life, the water has been so heavily diverted that the riverbed in the city has usually sat dry.
    Ian James, Los Angeles Times, 19 Sep. 2024
  • Dozens, maybe 100s, of vehicles were stuck in the backups in swirling snow as highway patrol tried to divert them.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Jan. 2023
  • Sandbags can help divert water if your yard is prone to flooding.
    NBC News, 19 Aug. 2023
  • But that screen in your hand isn’t just diverting your attention.
    Markham Heid, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Jan. 2024
  • About 2,000 were diverted, meaning CAM helped the household find a safe place to stay outside of shelters.
    Nushrat Rahman, Detroit Free Press, 9 June 2023
  • Three years later, Pate found a fifth of her paycheck diverted to an unknown debt.
    Giacomo Bologna, Baltimore Sun, 29 Apr. 2023
  • The simple action of taking a photo can divert our attention and take us out of the moment.
    Helen Li, Los Angeles Times, 21 Sep. 2023
  • Pumps were deployed to divert water around the dam, and the structure ultimately held.
    Sabrina Shankman, BostonGlobe.com, 15 July 2023
  • Water that once flowed south from the lake through the Everglades and into the Gulf was diverted into thousands of canals to dry the land for farming.
    Michael Adno, Rolling Stone, 7 Jan. 2024
  • As a result, available ROVs were diverted to the area to begin searching.
    Anders Hagstrom, Fox News, 22 June 2023
  • Under the law, the state can divert up to $90 million of lottery revenue annually to pay back the $1.2 billion in bonds.
    Giacomo Bologna, Baltimore Sun, 12 Sep. 2023
  • Using the threat of warnings and citations, the city sought to divert the teens from busy intersections to services and jobs.
    Alex Mann, Baltimore Sun, 17 July 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'divert.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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