delve

[delv]

verb (used without object)

delved, delving 

1. to carry on intensive and thorough research for data, information, or the like; investigate.

   to delve into the issue of prison reform.

   Synonyms: explore, examine, probe, inquire, research

2. Archaic.,  to dig, as with a spade.

verb (used with object)

delved, delving 

1. Archaic.,  to dig; excavate.

delve

/ dɛlv /

verb

1. to inquire or research deeply or intensively (for information, etc)

   he delved in the Bible for quotations

2. to search or rummage (in a drawer, the pockets, etc)

3. (esp of an animal) to dig or burrow deeply (into the ground, etc)

4. archaic,  (also tr) to dig or turn up (earth, a garden, etc), as with a spade

Other Word Forms

• delver noun
• undelved adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of delve¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English delven, Old English delfan; cognate with Dutch delven, Old High German telban

Word History and Origins

Origin of delve¹

Old English delfan; related to Old High German telban to dig, Russian dolbit to hollow out with a chisel

Example Sentences

By delving back in time in the ice there, researchers hope to find out why these glaciers have resisted the general planetary warming of recent decades -- and whether this so-called "Karakoram anomaly" could be ending.

Read more on Barron's

Further delving into the double-edged impact of amyloid beta could also inform future treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's, by finding ways to isolate its protective immune effects without harming the brain.

Read more on Science Daily

Mitchell’s bank helped customers delve into stocks at a moment when the rising market nearly quadrupled, in little more than a year, the bank’s own stock price.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Moreover, “Anemone” teasingly delves into a paternal legacy— the price sons pay for inheriting their fathers’ flaws—as it considers the moral thickets of Britain’s late-20th-century history.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“I said under three conditions,” Diesel declared: To return the franchise to Los Angeles, delve back into street-racing culture, and reunite Toretto with his former partner, who was played by the late Paul Walker.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• burrow 
• inquire