delve
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
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”).
Inflected forms:
form: delves
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: delving
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: delved
pos: verb
tags: past
form: dolve
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
past
form: delved
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: dolve
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
participle
past
form: dolven
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
Senses:
gloss: To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
literary
examples: Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.
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.
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.
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.
‘The wealth of Moria was not in gold and jewels, the toys of the Dwarves; nor in iron, their servant. Such things they found here, it is true, especially iron; but they did not need to delve for them: all things that they desired they could obtain in traffic. For here alone in the world was found Moria-silver, or true-silver as some have called it: mithril is the Elvish name. The Dwarves have a name which they do not tell. Its worth was ten times that of gold, and now it is beyond price; for little is left above ground, and even the Orcs dare not delve here for it. The lodes lead away north towards Caradhras, and down to darkness. The Dwarves tell no tale; but even as mithril was the foundation of their wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin’s Bane. Of what they brought to light the Orcs have gathered nearly all, and given it in tribute to Sauron, who covets it.
gloss: To dig; to excavate.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
literary
examples: And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory […]
They dolve a grave beneath the arrow / And covered it with brere.
Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.
gloss: To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
figuratively
literary
examples: I cannot delve him to the root.
She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.
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.
Related words: dolven
Derived words: delver
indelve
undelve
undelved
Translations:
lang: Asturian
word: cavar
lang: Bulgarian
word: копая
roman: kopaja
lang: Czech
word: rýt
lang: Czech
word: zrýt
lang: Czech
word: vyrýt
lang: Czech
word: kopat
lang: Czech
word: vykopat
lang: Danish
word: grave
lang: Dutch
word: delven
lang: Finnish
word: kaivaa
lang: French
word: creuser
lang: West-Frisian
word: dolle
lang: German
word: graben
lang: German
word: buddeln
lang: Greek
word: σκαλίζω
roman: skalízo
lang: Greek
word: σκάβω
roman: skávo
lang: Hungarian
word: ás
lang: Icelandic
word: grafa (með skóflu, with a shovel)
lang: Icelandic
word: moka
lang: Italian
word: scavare
lang: Japanese
word: ほる
lang: Low German
word: dölven
lang: Norwegian
word: grave
lang: Persian
word: کندن
roman: kandan
lang: Portuguese
word: cavar
lang: Romanian
word: săpa
lang: Russian
word: рыть
roman: rytʹ
lang: Russian
word: копа́ть
roman: kopátʹ
lang: Swedish
word: gräva
lang: Ottoman Turkish
word: قازمق
roman: kazmak
lang: Ukrainian
word: рити
roman: ryty
lang: Ukrainian
word: копати
roman: kopaty
lang: Welsh
word: cloddio