Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To search deeply and laboriously.
- intransitive verb To research or make inquiries into something.
- intransitive verb To undertake an activity or occupation undeterred by difficulty or uncertainty.
- intransitive verb To discuss or explain something, especially in detail.
- intransitive verb To enter or move into an area in which movement is difficult.
- intransitive verb To dig the ground, as with a spade.
- intransitive verb Archaic To dig (ground) with a spade.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To dig; turn up or excavate with a spade or some other tool.
- To bury.
- To practise digging; labor with the spade.
- Figuratively, to carry on laborious or continued research or investigation, as one digging for hidden treasure.
- noun A place dug or hollowed out; a pitfall; a ditch; a den; a cave.
- noun That which is dug out: as, a delve of coals (a certain quantity of coal dug from a mine).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A place dug; a pit; a ditch; a den; a cave.
- transitive verb To dig; to open (the ground) as with a spade.
- transitive verb To dig into; to penetrate; to trace out; to fathom.
- intransitive verb To dig or labor with a spade, or as with a spade; to labor as a drudge.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb intransitive To
dig the ground, especially with ashovel . - verb transitive, intransitive To
search thoroughly andcarefully for information,research , dig into,penetrate ,fathom , trace out - verb transitive, intransitive To dig, to excavate.
- noun A
pit orden .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb turn up, loosen, or remove earth
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word delve.
Examples
-
He and Michelle can go back to their hateful church and once again delve into their bitter circle of friends that hate America.
-
I didn't mean for this post to once again delve into my mind, but it's a journal, so who cares?
jealous angel, deep inside me tragic_elegance 2008
-
Fan fiction has become so popular that itÂ’s only a matter of a quick search before you can once again delve into the lives of the fictional characters youÂ’ve grown to love.
-
CS5 Essential Training titles delve deeper into these features using example projects to demonstrate techniques, improve workflow, and much more.
-
"The Beatles" version exclusively explores the Fab Four's extensive archive, while the other two titles delve into the vast genre of rock 'n' roll.
-
Newspaper reporters don't "delve" anymore . . . the age of Woodward and Bernstein is long dead.
The real reason why Team Newsom unleashed the Clinton so early in it's campaign. 2009
-
BRODY: They had to deal with that, and so they're reticent to a certain degree to kind of delve into some of the faith issues as it relates to the political environment, if you will, because they know that he can get a lot of backlash.
-
I mean, one of the reasons I took it is because I wanted to kind of delve into something a little bit more serious, a little bit more dramatic than I had been doing.
-
Q Mike, just getting back to tomorrow, could you kind of delve into what's so important about the climate change --
Press Briefing By Mike Mccurry And Robert Bell ITY National Archives 1997
-
As I started to kind of delve into the question rather more, it dawned on me that this period that I had arrived at the end of -- the period from 1945 to the early 1970s -- was not normal, was not the way America usually was, but was, on the contrary, a huge aberration, a massive stroke of luck.
The Day Before Yesterday: Reconsidering America's Past, Rediscovering the Present 1996
milosrdenstvi commented on the word delve
I absolutely abominate this word when used in the sense of "inquire into or learn about". Such a pretentious metaphor!
November 2, 2010
tankhughes commented on the word delve
ChatGPT-generated papers use "delve" more often than normal human use, so we may see an increase of its use generally in society. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7PF_C4ACDK/
It also overuses commendable and meticulous. Future search terms for teachers looking for student copypasta.
May 22, 2024