Delve vs Ferret - What's the difference?
delve | ferret |
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:
An often domesticated mammal rather like a weasel, descended from the polecat and often trained to hunt burrowing animals.
The (black-footed ferret), .
A diligent searcher.
To hunt game with ferrets.
To uncover and bring to light by searching; usually to ferret out .
* Shakespeare
* 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 1
(dated) A tape of silk, cotton, or ribbon, used to tie documents, clothing, etc. or along the edge of fabric.
* Charles Dickens, Bleak House
As verbs the difference between delve and ferret
is that delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel while ferret is to hunt game with ferrets.As nouns the difference between delve and ferret
is that delve is a pit or den while ferret is an often domesticated mammal rather like a weasel, descended from the polecat and often trained to hunt burrowing animals or ferret can be (dated) a tape of silk, cotton, or ribbon, used to tie documents, clothing, etc or along the edge of fabric.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
* ----ferret
English
(wikipedia ferret)Etymology 1
(etyl) furet, ferret, from (etyl) firet, furet, diminutive of (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)Synonyms
* (domesticated polecat) Mustela putorius furoVerb
(en verb)- Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him.
- She ferreted in her bag; then held it up mouth downwards; then fumbled in her lap, all so vigorously that Charles Steele in the Panama hat suspended his paint-brush.
See also
*Etymology 2
(etyl) fiorettoNoun
- red tape and green ferret