delve

verb \ ˈdelv \

|Updated on: 17 Aug 2018

Examples: delve in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Digging Up the History of delve

Definition of delve

delved; delving

transitive verb

archaic : excavate

intransitive verb

1 : to dig or labor with or as if with a spade

delved into her handbag in search of a pen

2 a : to make a careful or detailed search for information

delved into the past

b : to examine a subject in detail

the book delves into the latest research

won't delve into her reason for leaving

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delver

noun

See delve defined for English-language learners

See delve defined for kids

delve was our Word of the Day on 10/12/2015. Hear the podcast!

Examples of delve in a Sentence

He tried to delve inside his memory for clues about what had happened.

Recent Examples of delve from the Web

The low point of the afternoon came when Texas congressman Louie Gohmert started delving into Strzok’s private life.

— jeet heer, The New Republic, "The House Judiciary hearings into Russia investigation have become a circus.," 12 July 2018
Tepper and Rivera discussed analytics during their meetings, but did not delve too deeply into Xs-and-Os.

— joseph person, charlotteobserver, "Owner David Tepper: Panthers blessed with Ron Rivera, 'a pretty good football side'," 10 July 2018
Other users who have delved into the trend include @VanillaJellaba, the layered mask-wearing entity.

— liana satenstein, Vogue, "@Checking_Invoices Is the Anonymous, Masked Instagram Account That Makes Fashion Fun Again," 10 July 2018
The report did not delve into the specifics of how routes could be restructured, but instead identified topics that Philadelphia should consider to make a bus network more effective.

— jason laughlin, Philly.com, "Philadelphia's new bus network begins to take shape," 21 June 2018
This void provides Phillips with a fertile foundation on which to delve deeper into the themes of race, gender, and power.

— joan gaylord, The Christian Science Monitor, "'A View of the Empire at Sunset' uses author Jean Rhys to explore 'otherness'," 13 June 2018
The investigation began, prosecutors said, when the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service started delving into credit card fraud in the Corvallis area in December 2016.

— maxine bernstein, OregonLive.com, "Credit card fraud financed state-licensed Corvallis Cannabis Club, feds say," 12 June 2018
Christina and Tarek El Moussa only recently returned for the first Flip or Flop season since their split, but the HGTV show didn't waste any time delving into one of the more uncomfortable aspects of divorce: dating.

— taysha murtaugh, Country Living, "What Flip or Flop's Tarek El Moussa Really Thinks of Christina's New Boyfriend Ant Anstead," 7 June 2018
The report doesn’t delve into why rates of suicide, homicide and other injury deaths are climbing for kids and adolescents.

— jamie ducharme, Time, "Deaths By Suicide and Firearms Are Rising Sharply Among Kids," 1 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'delve.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Digging Up the History of delve

We must dig deep into the English language's past to find the origins of "delve." The verb originated in 9th century Old English as "delfan" and is related to the Old High German word telban, meaning "dig." For some 400 years, there was only delving - no digging - because "dig" didn't exist until the 13th century. Is the phrase "dig and delve" (as in the line "eleven, twelve, dig and delve," from the nursery rhyme that begins "one, two, buckle my shoe") redundant? Not necessarily. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in some local uses as recently as the late 19th century, "dig" was the term for working with a mattock (a tool similar to an adze or a pick), while "delve" was reserved for using a spade.