delved
/dɛlvd/
delved is the simple past and past participle of delve.
Meaning of delve
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
- 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)
- 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...
- Synonyms:
- investigate, research
Words formed from delved
Questions about delved
- What is delved the simple past and past participle of?
- Delved is the simple past and past participle of delve.
- How do you pronounce delved?
- Delved is pronounced /dɛlvd/.
Words near delved in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: delved (page history and authors); delve (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.
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Cite this entry: “delved.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/delved. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.