Refine this word faster
Delve
Definitions
- 1 A surname from Old English.
- 1 A pit or den. archaic, literary
"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 [...]."
- 1 To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel. intransitive, literary
"Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor."
- 2 turn up, loosen, or remove earth wordnet
- 3 To dig; to excavate. ambitransitive, literary
"And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory […]"
- 4 To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out ambitransitive, figuratively, literary
"I cannot delve him to the root."
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”).
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”).
See also for "delve"
Next best steps
Mini challenge
Unscramble this word: delve