DIVULGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does divulge mean? 

• DIVULGE (verb)
  The verb DIVULGE has 1 sense:

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

  Familiarity information: DIVULGE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DIVULGE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they divulge    ... he / she / it divulges   
Past simple: divulged   
Past participle: divulged   
-ing form: divulging   

Sense 1

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

break; bring out; disclose; discover; divulge; expose; give away; let on; let out; reveal; uncover; unwrap

Context example:

The newspaper uncovered the President's illegal dealings

Hypernyms (to "divulge" is one way to...):

tell (let something be known)

Cause:

break; get around; get out (be released or become known; of news)

Verb group:

break; get around; get out (be released or become known; of news)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "divulge"):

blackwash (bring (information) out of concealment)

muckrake (explore and expose misconduct and scandals concerning public figures)

blow (cause to be revealed and jeopardized)

out (reveal (something) about somebody's identity or lifestyle)

come out; come out of the closet; out (to state openly and publicly one's homosexuality)

spring (produce or disclose suddenly or unexpectedly)

betray; bewray (reveal unintentionally)

confide (reveal in private; tell confidentially)

leak (tell anonymously)

babble; babble out; blab; blab out; let the cat out of the bag; peach; sing; spill the beans; talk; tattle (divulge confidential information or secrets)

reveal (disclose directly or through prophets)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something
Somebody ----s something to somebody
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE

Sentence example:

They divulge that there was a traffic accident

Derivation:

divulgement; divulgence (the act of disclosing something that was secret or private)

 Context examples 

Treatment of information so that it is not divulged in ways that are inconsistent with the understanding of the original disclosure.

(Confidentiality, NCI Thesaurus)

He knew how to watch the thing that was strange, and to wait for a weakness, for a place of entrance, to divulge itself.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

His secret was a shameful one, and he could not bring himself to divulge it.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He never spoke of himself, and in a conversation with Miss Norton divulged the pleasing fact.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

What he will divulge I cannot tell, but I have no doubt that your Grace could make him understand that it is to his interest to be silent.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s apartment and told her hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn had been divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the French government; he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few hours.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)