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Delve vs Inspect - What's the difference?

delve | inspect |

As verbs the difference between delve and inspect

is that delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel while inspect is to examine critically or carefully; especially, to search out problems or determine condition; to scrutinize.

As a noun delve

is a pit or den.

delve

English

Verb

  • To dig the ground, especially with a shovel.
  • * 1381 , John Ball
    • When Adam dalf and Eve span, / Who was then a gentleman?
  • * Dryden
    • 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.
  • (ambitransitive) To search thoroughly and carefully for information, research, dig into, penetrate, fathom, trace out
  • * 1609-11 , Shakespeare, Cymbeline, King of Britain
    • I cannot delve him to the root.
  • * 1943 , Emile C. Tepperman, Calling Justice, Inc.!
    • She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.
  • (ambitransitive) To dig, to excavate.
  • * ca. 1260 , Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend
    • And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory ...
  • * 1891 , , The White Company , chapter IV
    • Let him take off his plates and delve' himself, if ' delving must be done.

    Synonyms

    * (to dig the ground) dig * (to search thoroughly) investigate, research

    Derived terms

    * delver * indelve

    Related terms

    * dolven

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A pit or den.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.iii:
    • 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

    * ----

    inspect

    English

    Alternative forms

    * enspect

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To examine critically or carefully; especially, to search out problems or determine condition; to scrutinize.
  • To view and examine officially.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=6 citation , passage=‘[…] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because “it was wicked to dress us like charity children”. […]’.}}

    Derived terms

    * inspector * inspection

    Anagrams

    * *