Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To make known (something private or secret).
  • transitive verb Archaic To proclaim publicly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make public; send or scatter abroad; publish.
  • Specifically To tell or make known, as something before private or secret; reveal; disclose; declare openly.
  • To declare by a public act; proclaim.
  • To impart, as a gift or faculty; confer generally.
  • Synonyms To let out, disclose, betray, impart, communicate.
  • To become public; be made known; become visible.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb rare To become publicly known.
  • transitive verb To make public; to several or communicate to the public; to tell (a secret) so that it may become generally known; to disclose; -- said of that which had been confided as a secret, or had been before unknown.
  • transitive verb rare To indicate publicly; to proclaim.
  • transitive verb To impart; to communicate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To make public; to several or communicate to the public; to tell (a secret) so that it may become generally known; to disclose; -- said of that which had been confided as a secret, or had been before unknown; as, to divulge a secret.
  • verb To indicate publicly; to proclaim.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English divulgen, from Old French divulguer, from Latin dīvulgāre, to publish : dī-, dis-, among; see dis– + vulgāre, to spread among the multitude (from vulgus, common people).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin divulgare, from di- ("widely") + vulgare ("publish").

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Examples

  • "I would rather die than divulge anything," Charlotte protested solemnly, and her choice of the word divulge seemed to add considerably to the dignity of the proceedings.

    The Beth Book Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius Sarah Grand

  • What neither you nor your New York Times enablers divulge is that the CIA manifestly didn’t agree with the DIA’s assessment.

    Think Progress » Winning The War On Talking Points 2005

  • No word divulge of all my purpose, as thou art to thy mistress loyal and likewise of my sex.

    Medea 2008

  • No word divulge of all my purpose, as thou art to thy mistress loyal and likewise of my sex.

    Medea 2008

  • And despite the pleas from your readers, you never divulge which is true and which are fabrications.

    Archive 2009-08-01 James F. McGrath 2009

  • And despite the pleas from your readers, you never divulge which is true and which are fabrications.

    (Mostly Dis)honest (S)crap Meme James F. McGrath 2009

  • By virtue of her rare acquaintance with savage customs, she was able to taunt the Barghîz with the horrors of their tribal mystery, to divulge which is _Death_!

    He Andrew Lang 1878

  • They talked of the bond that occurs when two individuals open up and share their true intentions and feelings, when they divulge real facts without hiding behind some cloak of fiction.

    Hemanshu Nigam: The Bachelorette and the Hope of Truth Hemanshu Nigam 2011

  • But I'd also have thought that Christine, who declined to divulge her last name, was well past worrying about photography at that point.

    Tough Job in the Naked City Ralph Gardner Jr. 2011

  • On the way over, he shared the kind of information that in later years Google would never divulge: real numbers about its servers and its searches.

    In the Plex Steven Levy 2011

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