delve
/dɛlv
/verb [no object]
1Reach inside a receptacle and search for something: she delved in her pocket...
- Jo then delved in to the toy box and brought out a farmyard set before passing round a bag of plastic animals for the youngsters to pull out and identify.
- At great personal risk I delved in among the spines today but, apart from last year's abandoned nest, there was nothing.
- Then he prised open my mouth and delved in with a metal stick while the nurse fed a miniature sprinkler system down my gullet.
Synonyms
rummage (about/around/round) in, search (through), hunt through, scrabble about/around in, root about/around in, ferret (about/around) in, fish about/around in, poke about/around in, dig in, grub about/around in, go through, burrow in;
rifle through, scour, ransack, turn upside down, turn inside out
British informal rootle around in
Australian/New Zealand informal fossick through
rare roust around in
1.1Research or make painstaking enquiries into something: the society is determined to delve deeper into the matter...
- Along with that, the show has two researchers delving into all the newspaper periodicals that are sent in.
- His research delves into matroidal structures, a concept based on graphs and matrices and its applications.
- I was confused and delved into my own research on the matter.
Synonyms
investigate, conduct investigations into, make enquiries into, enquire into, probe, examine, explore, research, study, look into, go into;
try to get to the bottom of
2 archaic Dig; excavate: when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? [with object]: the approach from the surface above had awed her, so hugely delved were the tunnels...
- They rounded another corner, careful not to brush up against the slime-covered wall and descended down another tunnel, delving deeper underground.
- Although the economy as a set of material practices has existed ever since ‘Adam delved and Eve span,’ it was not conceptualized as separate until about 300 years ago.
- He turned the corner and still the tunnel delved deeper into the rock.
Derivatives
delver
- A top profiler and unmatched delver into the serial-killer mindset, she is terribly good at that thing where you hold the torch on top of your handgun when entering a dark apartment.
- A truly remarkable book thoroughly investigated and produced by arguably one the world's greatest delvers into the understanding of the ancient past.
- Fate was - in the past - supposed to be the supreme delver into the arcane and the mysterious energies of the universe.
Origin
Old English delfan 'dig', of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch delven.
Rhymes
- Childline
- childliness
- childling
- child lock
- Child, Lydia Maria
- childmind
- childminder
- childminding
- child molestation
- child molester
- childness
- child offender
- child porn
- child pornographer
- child pornography
- child prodigy
- childproof
- child protection
- child psychiatrist
- child psychiatry
- child psychologist
- child psychology
- child-rearing
- children
- childrenite