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Webster 1913 Edition


Delve

Delve

Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Delved
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Delving
.]
[AS.
delfan
to dig; akin to OS.
bidelban
to bury, D.
delven
to dig, MHG.
telben
, and possibly to E.
dale
. Cf.
Delf
a mine.]
1.
To dig; to open (the ground) as with a spade.
Delve
of convenient depth your thrashing floor.
Dryden.
2.
To dig into; to penetrate; to trace out; to fathom.
I can not
delve
him to the root.
Shakespeare

Delve

,
Verb.
I.
To dig or labor with a spade, or as with a spade; to labor as a drudge.
Delve
may I not: I shame to beg.
Wyclif (Luke xvi. 3).

Delve

,
Noun.
[See
Delve
,
Verb.
T.
, and cf.
Delf
a mine.]
A place dug; a pit; a ditch; a den; a cave.
Which to that shady
delve
him brought at last.
Spenser.
The very tigers from their
delves

Look out.
Moore.

Webster 1828 Edition


Delve

DELVE

,
Verb.
T.
Delv. [L. A mole, perhaps the delver.]
1.
To dig; to open the ground with a spade.
Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.
2.
To fathom; to sound; to penetrate.
I cannot delve him to the root.

DELVE

,
Noun.
Delv. A place dug: a pit; a pitfall; a ditch; a den; a cave.
Delve of coals, a quantity of fossil coals dug.

Definition 2024


delve

delve

English

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To dig the ground, especially with a shovel.
    • 1381, John Ball
      When Adam dalf and Eve span, / Who was then a gentleman?
    • Dryden
      Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.
    • 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter XXIX
      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.
  2. (transitive, intransitive) To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
    • 1609-11, Shakespeare, Cymbeline, King of Britain
      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.
  3. (transitive, intransitive) To dig, to excavate.
    • ca. 1260, Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend
      And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory ...
    • 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company, chapter IV
      Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

delve (plural delves)

  1. (now rare) A pit or den.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.iii:
      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 2015, p. 75:
      I put the clods on top the delve and gave it all a good thumping down with my feet.

Anagrams


Dutch

Verb

delve

  1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of delven

Anagrams