Word: diverting
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...lack of spirit and a want of energy in the students. While the real reason is this: the Harvard man seeks amusement; he finds it one year in rowing or running, the next year he is tired of these and looks around for some new pursuit with which to divert himself. This feeling is not peculiar to him, it is common to all mankind. The inhabitants of a city are amused by spelling-matches for a time; they get tired of these, and are amused by wrestling-matches, of which they also soon become wearied. So let us not think...
...these persons is of an inventive turn of mind, he might have his name handed down to posterity as the inventor of some kind of minute fishing-tackle by which these sportive creatures could be caught. The fishing could be engaged in between courses (?), and might divert the minds of all from unpleasant contemplation...