Meaning

(intransitive) To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel..

Definitions by Sense

1. (intransitive) To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
2. (ambitransitive) To dig; to excavate.
3. (ambitransitive, figurative) To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
4. (now rare) A pit or den.

Example Sentences

Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.

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.

He finds out, soon enough for his weal and his bane, that he is stronger than Nature: and right tyrannously and irreverently he lords it over her, clearing, delving, dyking, building, without fear or shame.

With a grunt that rejected a disgraceful admission of poverty, Bradly delved up a shilling and a sixpence and showed them to her. "That's all I got left," he said, and tossed the coins dyspeptically away.

‘The wealth of Moria was not in gold and jewels, the toys of the Dwarves; nor in iron, their servant. 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. For here alone in the world was found Moria-silver, or true-silver as some have called it: mithril is the Elvish name. The Dwarves have a name which they do not tell. Its worth was ten times that of gold, and now it is beyond price; for little is left above ground, and even the Orcs dare not delve here for it. The lodes lead away north towards Caradhras, and down to darkness. The Dwarves tell no tale; but even as mithril was the foundation of their wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin’s Bane. Of what they brought to light the Orcs have gathered nearly all, and given it in tribute to Sauron, who covets it.

And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory […]

They dolve a grave beneath the arrow / And covered it with brere.

Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.

Word Forms

• delves
• delving
• delved
• dolve
• dolven

Synonyms for delve

Related Words

When Should You Use Delve?

Use delve when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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