Delve vs Cave - What's the difference?
delve | cave |
To dig the ground, especially with a shovel.
* 1381 , John Ball
* Dryden
*
(ambitransitive) To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
* 1609-11 , Shakespeare, Cymbeline, King of Britain
* 1943 , Emile C. Tepperman, Calling Justice, Inc.!
(ambitransitive) To dig, to excavate.
* ca. 1260 , Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend
* 1891 , , The White Company , chapter IV
A pit or den.
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.iii:
A large, naturally-occurring cavity formed underground, or in the face of a cliff or a hillside.
* , chapter=16
, title= A hole, depression, or gap in earth or rock, whether natural or man-made.
* {{quote-book, 1918, Edward Alfred Steiner, Uncle Joe's Lincoln
, passage=Every boy at one time or another has dug a cave ; I suppose because ages and ages ago his ancestors had to live in caves,
A storage cellar, especially for wine or cheese.
A place of retreat, such as a man cave.
(caving) A naturally-occurring cavity in bedrock which is large enough to be entered by an adult.
(nuclear physics) A shielded area where nuclear experiments can be carried out.
* {{quote-book, 1986, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, Radiation Alarms and Access Control Systems, page=45
, passage=These potential radiation fields or radioactive material levels may be the result of normal operations (ie, radiation in a target cave )
(drilling, uncountable) Debris, particularly broken rock, which falls into a drill hole and interferes with drilling.
* {{quote-book, 1951, James Deans Cumming, Diamond Drill Handbook, page=134
, passage=
(mining) A collapse or cave-in.
* {{quote-book, 1885, (Angelo Heilprin), Town Geology: The Lesson of the Philadelphia Rocks, page=79
, passage=The "breasts" of marble which unite the opposite lateral walls have been left standing in order to prevent a possible cave of the wall on either side.}}
The vagina.
* {{quote-book, 1976, (Chester Himes), My Life of Absurdity, page=59
, passage=Then without a word she lay on her back in the bed, her dark blond pubic hair rising about her dark wet cave like dried brush about a hidden spring.}}
A group that breaks from a larger political party or faction on a particular issue.
* {{quote-book, 1964, Leon D. Epstein, British Politics in the Suez Crisis, page=125
, passage=Without joining the cave , Hyde had abstained both in December 1956 and May 1957.}}
(obsolete) Any hollow place, or part; a cavity.
* Francis Bacon
To surrender.
To collapse.
To hollow out or undermine.
To engage in the recreational exploration of caves; to spelunk.
(mining) In room-and-pillar mining, to extract a deposit of rock by breaking down a pillar which had been holding it in place.
(mining, obsolete) To work over tailings to dress small pieces of marketable ore.
* {{quote-book, 1999, Andy Wood, The Politics of Social Conflict: The Peak Country, 1520-1770, page=319
, passage=As an indication of the miners' desperation in these years, the free miners of Wensley lowered themselves to caving for scraps of ore. }}
(obsolete) To dwell in a cave.
As verbs the difference between delve and cave
is that delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel while cave is to surrender.As nouns the difference between delve and cave
is that delve is a pit or den while cave is a large, naturally-occurring cavity formed underground, or in the face of a cliff or a hillside.As an interjection cave is
look out!; beware.As a proper noun Cave is
{{surname}.delve
English
Verb
- When Adam dalf and Eve span, / Who was then a gentleman?
- Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.
- 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.
- I cannot delve him to the root.
- She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.
- And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory ...
- Let him take off his plates and delve' himself, if ' delving must be done.
Synonyms
* (to dig the ground) dig * (to search thoroughly) investigate, researchDerived terms
* delver * indelveNoun
(en noun)- 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 [...].
Anagrams
* ----cave
English
Etymology 1
(etyl), from (etyl) ).Noun
(en noun)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=The preposterous altruism too!
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- the cave of the ear
Synonyms
*Derived terms
* caveman * cave painting * cavewomanVerb
(cav)- He caved under pressure.
- First the braces buckled, then the roof began to cave , then we ran.
- The levee has been severely caved by the river current.
- I have caved from Yugoslavia to Kentucky.
- Let's go caving this weekend.
- The deposit is caved by knocking out the posts.
citation
- (Shakespeare)