Divers and Diverse

Old documents always use the word ‘divers’, which is still sometimes used instead of ‘diverse’. However, they do have different meanings. Divers means several of, or a certain number of, whereas diverse means of different natures. So, we might say ‘the navy contains diverse ships’, meaning they have aircraft carriers, destroyers, battleships and cruisers. To say: ‘the man had diverse children’ infers several sexes, or they were all different in some way, but ‘the man had divers children’ would mean he had a large family. Who still uses ‘divers’ in this way? At least you now know what is meant in old documents rather than believing they had people who could swim underwater for long periods.