Word of the Day

: October 12, 2015

delve

verb DELV

What It Means

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

2 a : to make a careful or detailed search for information
   b : to examine a subject in detail

delve in Context

"Of course, help yourself to whatever you like," Rosalie murmured vaguely before delving back into her book.

"Laura M R Harrison's video sequences will use darkness and water to delve into the idea of being psychologically lost and the ways in which we consider the unknown." — Becky Henrys, Cumbria Live (Cumbria, England), 21 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?

We must dig deep into the English language's past to find the origins of delve. The verb traces to the 9th-century Old English word delfan and is related to the Old High German word telban, meaning "to 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 work done using a spade.