DELVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does delve mean? 

• DELVE (verb)
  The verb DELVE has 1 sense:

1. turn up, loosen, or remove earth

  Familiarity information: DELVE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DELVE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they delve    ... he / she / it delves   
Past simple: delved   
Past participle: delved   
-ing form: delving   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Turn up, loosen, or remove earth

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

cut into; delve; dig; turn over

Context example:

turn over the soil for aeration

Hypernyms (to "delve" is one way to...):

remove; take; take away; withdraw (remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "delve"):

furrow; groove; rut (hollow out in the form of a furrow or groove)

root; rootle; rout (dig with the snout)

spade (dig (up) with a spade)

shovel (dig with or as if with a shovel)

trowel (use a trowel on; for light garden work or plaster work)

burrow; tunnel (move through by or as by digging)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s PP

 Context examples 

Then I am quite satisfied with the experiment, and fancy that we shall not have to repeat it, only don't go to the other extreme and delve like slaves.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

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

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some researchers are delving deep down to see how dust comes together at the atomic level, while others are looking at the big picture to see where stars and planets might be forming in dusty stellar nurseries.

(All we are is dust in the interstellar wind, NSF)

She delved in the dust of ancient times for facts or fictions so old that they were as good as new, and introduced herself to folly, sin, and misery, as well as her limited opportunities allowed.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)