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delve
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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See also: Delve
English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
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”).
Verb
delve (third-person singular simple present delves, present participle delving, simple past delved or (obsolete) dolve, past participle delved or (obsolete) dolve or (archaic) dolven)
- (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.
- 1954, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings, London: George Allen & Unwin, →OCLC; republished Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, →ISBN:
- ‘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.
- (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.
- (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.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
to dig in the ground
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to search carefully for information
|
Etymology 2
From Middle English delve, delf, dælf, from Old English delf, ġedelf (“digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug out, delf, ditch”). More at delf.
Noun
delve (plural delves)
- (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.
Related terms
Anagrams
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Dutch
Verb
delve
Anagrams
Middle English
Etymology 1
From Old English delfan.
Verb
delve
- alternative form of delven
Etymology 2
From Old English delf.
Noun
delve
- alternative form of delf
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