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Delve vs Deepen - What's the difference?

delve | deepen |

In intransitive terms the difference between delve and deepen

is that delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel while deepen is to become lower in tone.

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

    * ----

    deepen

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make deep or deeper
    • They deepened the well by 200 feet.
  • To make darker or more intense; to darken
    • The event deepened the prevailing gloom.
  • To make more poignant or affecting; to increase in degree
    • News of her death deepened my sorrow.
  • To make lower in tone
    • The tuner deepened the tone of the organ.
  • To become deeper
    • The water deepens as you go toward the middle of the channel.
  • To become darker or more intense
    • The crisis deepened in the following weeks.
  • To become lower in tone
    • His voice deepened with age.
    (defn)

    Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs