delve
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /dɛlv/
rhymes: -ɛlv
Forms: form: delves
form: delving
form: delved
form: dolve
form: delved
form: dolve
form: dolven
Etymology: From Middle English delven, from Old English delfan (“to dig, dig out, burrow, bury”), from Proto-Germanic *delbaną (“to dig”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰelbʰ- (“to dig”). Cognate with West Frisian dolle (“to dig, delve”), Dutch delven (“to dig, delve”), Low German dölven (“to dig, delve”), dialectal German delben, telben (“to dig, delve”).
Senses: examples: text: Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.
ref: 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might—it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down.
ref: 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:
text: He finds out, soon enough for his weal and his bane, that he is stronger than Nature: and right tyrannously and irreverently he lords it over her, clearing, delving, dyking, building, without fear or shame.
ref: 1866, C[harles] Kingsley, “Prelude. Of the Fens.”, in Hereward the Wake, “Last of the English.” […], volume I, London; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 4:
text: With a grunt that rejected a disgraceful admission of poverty, Bradly delved up a shilling and a sixpence and showed them to her. "That's all I got left," he said, and tossed the coins dyspeptically away.
ref: 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 209:
glosses: To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
examples: text: I cannot delve him to the root.
ref: 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
text: She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.
ref: 1943, Emile C. Tepperman, Calling Justice, Inc.!:
text: Hampton delves into all sortsa cultural rootage — from country blues to smarmy Broadway show-tunage, combining them in a friendly, swinging way. This is the sorta record that should appeal to anybody who gave up on Zappa after Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
ref: 1988 June, “Underground”, in Spin, page 32:
synonyms: investigate
research
glosses: To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
examples: text: And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory […]
ref: [1483, Jacobus de Voragine, translated by William Caxton, The Golden Legend (in Middle English):
text: They dolve a grave beneath the arrow / And covered it with brere.
ref: 1865, Sebastian Evans, Brother Fabian's Manuscript: And Other Poems, page 59:
text: Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.
ref: 1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter IV, in The White Company, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company […], →OCLC:
glosses: To dig; to excavate.
Derived terms: delver
indelve
undelve
undelved
Related terms: dolven