delve
/dɛlv/
delve verb: to dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
Verb
delve (third-person singular simple present delves, present participle delving, simple past delved or (archaic) dolve, past participle delved or (archaic) dolve or (archaic) dolven)
- To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
- Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.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
- 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...1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC
- 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 […][1483, Jacobus de Voragine, translated by William Caxton, The Golden Legend (in Middle English)
- They dolve a grave beneath the arrow / And covered it with brere.1865, Sebastian Evans, Brother Fabian's Manuscript: And Other Poems, page 59
- To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
- I cannot delve him to the root.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
- She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.1943, Emile C. Tepperman, Calling Justice, Inc.!
- Synonyms:
- investigate, research
Noun
delve (plural delves)
- 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 [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
- I put the clods on top the delve and gave it all a good thumping down with my feet.1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 75
Proper noun capitalized: Delve
Delve (plural Delves)
- A surname from Old English.
delve meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
delve in Tamil
- தேடுதல்
delve in Urdu
- کھودنا
delve in Malayalam
- search, rummage, hunt
- തിരയുക, തപ്പുക, ചികയുക, കിണ്ടുക, കിളറുക, കീച്ചുക
- enquire, investigate, probe
- തിരയുക, ആരായുക, അന്വേഷണം നടത്തുക, വിശദപരിശോധന നടത്തുക, ഗവേഷണം നടത്തുക, സൂക്ഷ്മാന്വേഷണം നടത്തുക
delve in Kannada
- ಅರಸು, ಆರಯ್ಯು
More languagesFewer languages
- delve in Persian
- کندن kandan, کاویدن kâvidan
Examples of delve in a sentence
- With a grunt that rejected a disgraceful admission of poverty, Bradly delved up a shilling and a sixpence and showed them to her.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 209:
- 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.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 &...
- Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter IV, in The White Company, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company […], →OCLC:
- Hampton delves into all sortsa cultural rootage — from country blues to smarmy Broadway show-tunage, combining them in a friendly, swinging way.1988 June, “Underground”, in Spin, page 32:
Synonyms of delve
Forms of delve
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | delves |
| present participle | delving |
| past | delved |
| past participle | delved |
| past (archaic) | dolve |
| past participle (archaic) | dolve |
| past participle (archaic) | dolven |
| Noun | |
| plural | delves |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Delves |
Origin of delve
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”).
From Middle English delve, delf, dælf, from Old English delf, ġedelf (“digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug out, delf, ditch”). More at delf.
Topographic surname for someone who lived near a ditch or trench, from Old English dælf (“delf, ditch”).
Words formed from delve
Words that rhyme with delve
Questions about delve
- What does delve mean?
- Delve means to dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
- What is delve in Tamil?
- Delve in Tamil is தேடுதல். See Delve meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use delve in a sentence?
- With a grunt that rejected a disgraceful admission of poverty, Bradly delved up a shilling and a sixpence and showed them to her.
- What part of speech is delve?
- Delve can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce delve?
- Delve is pronounced /dɛlv/.
- What is the past tense of delve?
- The past tense of delve is delved.
Words near delve in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: delve (page history and authors); Delve (page history and authors); delve (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); delve (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); delve (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); delve (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-delve.ogg.
Cite this entry: “delve.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/delve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.