Delve

Verb

 * 1)  To dig the ground, especially with a shovel.
 * 2) * 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, chapter 29.
 * 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.
 * 1)  To search thoroughly and carefully for information.
 * She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.
 * 1)  To dig, to excavate.
 * 2) * 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company, chapter IV.
 * Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.

Synonyms

 * : dig
 * : investigate

Noun

 * 1)  A pit or den.
 * 2) *1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.iii:
 * 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 [...].

Thesaurus
backset, beat the bushes, bore, burrow, cavity, cultivate, culture, cut, dig, dig out, dike, dredge, dress, drill, drive, excavate, explore, fallow, fertilize, forage, force, frisk, furrow, go through, gouge, gouge out, groove, grub, harrow, hoe, hollow, hunt, list, look around, look round, look through, lower, mine, mulch, nose around, plow, pocket, poke, poke around, prune, pry, quarry, rake, research, root, sap, scoop, scoop out, scrabble, scrape, scratch, search, search through, shovel, sink, smell around, spade, thin, thin out, till, till the soil, trench, trough, tunnel, vacancy, vacuity, vacuum, void, weed, weed out, work

Etymology

 * delven, from delfan, "to dig."

Verb

 * Bulgarian: копая
 * Dutch:
 * Finnish:
 * Hungarian: ás
 * Icelandic: grafa (með skóflu, with a shovel), moka


 * Portuguese:
 * Russian: ,


 * Bulgarian: ровя се
 * Finnish:, ,


 * Icelandic: rannsaka, kanna

Derived terms

 * delver

Anagrams

 * devel

Anagrams

 * velde