delve
noun
- a hollow or depression in a surface; a wrinkle
verb
- to search deeply and laboriously
- to research or make inquiries into something
- to undertake an activity or occupation undeterred by difficulty or uncertainty
- to discuss or explain something, especially in detail
- to enter or move into an area in which movement is difficult
- to dig the ground, as with a spade
- to dig (ground) with a spade
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /dɛlv/
name
Etymology: Topographic surname for someone who lived near a ditch or trench, from Old English dælf (“delf, ditch”).
- A surname from Old English.
noun
Etymology: From Middle English delve, delf, dælf, from Old English delf, ġedelf (“digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug out, delf, ditch”). More at delf.
- A 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.”
verb
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”).
- To 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 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.”
- To 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.”
- To 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.”