/dɛlv/
OriginFrom 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”).
- intransitive, literaryTo dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
“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 attaini”
“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 ”
- ambitransitive, literaryTo dig; to excavate.
“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.”
- ambitransitive, figuratively, literaryTo search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
“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 ”
- archaic, literaryA pit or den.
“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 [...].”
“I put the clods on top the delve and gave it all a good thumping down with my feet.”
- A surname from Old English.
Formsdelves(present, singular, third-person) · delving(participle, present) · delved(past) · dolve(obsolete, past) · delved(participle, past) · dolve(obsolete, participle, past) · dolven(archaic, participle, past) · delves(plural) · Delves(plural)