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Fumble vs Delve - What's the difference?

fumble | delve |

In lang=en terms the difference between fumble and delve

is that fumble is to blunder uncertainly while delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel.

As verbs the difference between fumble and delve

is that fumble is (intransitive) to idly touch or nervously handle while delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel.

As nouns the difference between fumble and delve

is that fumble is (sports) a ball etc that has been dropped while delve is a pit or den.

fumble

English

Verb

(fumbl)
  • (intransitive) To idly touch or nervously handle
    • Waiting for the interview, he fumbled with his tie.
    He fumbled the key into the lock.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2010 , date=December 28 , author=Owen Phillips , title=Sunderland 0 - 2 Blackpool , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Henderson's best strike on goal saw goalkeeper Kingson uncomfortably fumble his measured shot around the post.}}
  • (intransitive) To grope awkwardly in trying to find something
    • He fumbled for his keys.
    He fumbled his way to the light-switch.
  • * Fielding
    • Adams now began to fumble in his pockets.
  • To blunder uncertainly.
    • He fumbled through his prepared speech.
  • To grope about in perplexity; to seek awkwardly.
    • to fumble for an excuse
  • * Chesterfield
    • My understanding flutters and my memory fumbles .
  • * Wordsworth
    • Alas! how he fumbles about the domains.
  • (transitive, intransitive, sports) To drop a ball or a baton etc.
  • To handle much; to play childishly; to turn over and over.
  • * Shakespeare
    • I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (sports) A ball etc. that has been dropped

    • 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

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