delve

• IPA^(key): /dɛlv/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlv

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”).

delve (third-person singular simple present delves, present participle delving, simple past delved or (obsolete) dolve, past participle delved or (archaic) dolven)

1. (intransitive) To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
   • 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:

     Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.

   • 1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 209:

     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.

2. (ambitransitive) To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out

   Synonyms: investigate, research

   • 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):

     I cannot delve him to the root.

   • 1943, Emile C. Tepperman, Calling Justice, Inc.!:

     She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.

   • 1988 June, “Underground”, in Spin, page 32:

     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.

3. (ambitransitive) To dig; to excavate.
   • [1483, Jacobus de Voragine, translated by William Caxton, The Golden Legend (in Middle English):

     And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)]

   • 1865, Sebastian Evans, Brother Fabian's Manuscript: And Other Poems, page 59:

     They dolve a grave beneath the arrow / And covered it with brere.

   • 1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter IV, in The White Company, New York, N.Y., Boston, Mass.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company […], →OCLC:

     Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.

• delver
• indelve
• undelve
• undelved

• dolven

From Middle English delve, delf, dælf, from Old English delf, ġedelf (“digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug out, delf, ditch”). More at delf.

delve (plural delves)

1. (now rare) A pit or den.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     the wise Merlin whylome wont (they say) / To make his wonne, low vnderneath the ground, / In a deepe delue, farre from the vew of day [...].

   • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 75:

     I put the clods on top the delve and gave it all a good thumping down with my feet.

• stonedelf

• devel

delve

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of delven

• velde

From Old English delfan.

delve

1. alternative form of delven

From Old English delf.

delve

1. alternative form of delf