- swerve
- swerve, veer, deviate, depart, digress, diverge mean to turn aside from a straight line or a defined course.Swerve may refer to a turning aside, usually somewhat abruptly, by a person or material thing{
at that point the road swerves to the left
}{the great roots of a tree swerve upward out of the design— Binyon
}or it may suggest a mental, moral, or spiritual turning aside{had never swerved from what she conceived to be her duty— A. J. Kennedy
}{if I be false, or swerve a hair from truth— Shak.
}{our affections and passions put frequently a bias ... so strong on our judgments as to make them swerve from the direction of right reason— Bolingbroke
}Veer is frequently used in reference to a change in the course of a wind or of a ship; often it suggests either a frequent turning this way or that or a series of turnings in the same direction, especially of the wind in a clockwise direction{the wind veered to the east
}{[the ship] plunged and tacked and veered— Coleridge
}{the wind had veered round, and the Aurora was now able to lay up clear of the island of Maritimo— Marryat
}In extended use the term commonly implies a change or series of changes of direction or course under an external influence comparable to the wind{his thought, veering and tacking as the winds blew— Parrington
}or a turning aside for a tactical reason (as to avoid an undue influence){the plan has worked. . . .the state . . . has not only veered away from bankruptcy; it has also improved its services— Armbrister
}Deviate implies a turning aside from a customary, chosen, allotted, or prescribed course{finding it no easy matter to make my way without constantly deviating to this side or that from the course I wished to keep— Hudson
}It is commonly used in reference to persons, or their minds, their morals, and their actions, with the suggestion of a swerving from a norm or standard or from a right or lawful procedure or course{when the aesthetic sense deviates from its proper ends to burden itself with moral intentions . . . it ceases to realize morality— Ellis
}{had told him the story many times and ... never deviated in the telling— Costain
}{from a fundamental sincerity he could not deviate— T. S. Eliot
}The next three words of this group usually imply a turning aside from a literal or figurative way (as a path, course, track, or standard) which still continues.Depart stresses the turning away from and leaving an old path, a customary course, or an accepted type or standard; it may further imply a forsaking of the antiquated, con-ventional, or traditional{[books] which depart widely from the usual type— Grand gent
}or a deviation from what is right, true, or normal{forced by circumstance to depart from the principles of his own logic— W. P. Webb
}Digress commonly implies a departure from the subject of one's discourse that may be voluntary and made with the intent to return{let me digress for a few minutes to indicate the possible results of this condition
}or involuntary and the result of an inability to think coherently or to stick to the point to be developed{I shall not pursue these points further for fear of digressing too far from my main theme— S pi Is bury
}Diverge is sometimes used in the sense of depart{let them [professors] diverge in the slightest from what is the current official doctrine, and they are turned out of their chairs— Mencken
}but more typically it suggests a separation of a main, old, or original course or path into two or more courses or paths that lead away from each other{they proceeded along the road together till . . . their paths diverged— Hardy
}{two roads diverging like the branches of a Y— Belloc
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
