delve

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”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɛlv/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlv

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.

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

• devel

Verb

delve

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of delven

Anagrams

• velde