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”).
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Literary To dig into the ground, especially with a shovel.
Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
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.1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:
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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.1866, C[harles] Kingsley, “Prelude. Of the Fens.”, in Hereward the Wake, “Last of the English.” […], volume I, London; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 4:
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.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 209:
‘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.1954, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings, London: George Allen & Unwin, →OCLC; republished Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012, →ISBN:
And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory […][1483, Jacobus de Voragine, translated by William Caxton, The Golden Legend (in Middle English):
They dolve a grave beneath the arrow / And covered it with brere.1865, Sebastian Evans, Brother Fabian's Manuscript: And Other Poems, page 59:
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Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter IV, in The White Company, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Thomas Y[oung] Crowell & Company […], →OCLC:
3
Ambitransitive, Figuratively, Literary To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
I cannot delve him to the root.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.1943, Emile C. Tepperman, Calling Justice, Inc.!:
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Hampton delves into all sortsa cultural rootage — from country blues to smarmy Broadway show-tunage, combining them in a friendly, swinging way. This is the sorta record that should appeal to anybody who gave up on Zappa after Weasels Ripped My Flesh.1988 June, “Underground”, in Spin, page 32:
Etymology From Middle English delve, delf, dælf, from Old English delf, ġedelf (“digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug out, delf, ditch”). More at delf.
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 [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
I put the clods on top the delve and gave it all a good thumping down with my feet.1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 75: