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Rummage vs Delve - What's the difference?

rummage | delve |

In lang=en terms the difference between rummage and delve

is that rummage is to hastily search for something in a confined space and among many items by carelessly turning things over or pushing things aside while delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel.

As verbs the difference between rummage and delve

is that rummage is (nautical) to arrange (cargo, goods, etc) in the hold of a ship; to move or rearrange such goods while delve is to dig the ground, especially with a shovel.

As nouns the difference between rummage and delve

is that rummage is (obsolete) commotion; disturbance while delve is a pit or den.

rummage

English

Verb

(rummag)
  • (nautical) To arrange (cargo, goods, etc.) in the hold of a ship; to move or rearrange such goods.
  • (nautical) To search a vessel for smuggled goods.
  • To search something thoroughly and with disregard for the way in which things were arranged.
  • * Howell
  • Hesearcheth his pockets, and taketh his keys, and so rummageth all his closets and trunks.
  • * (Matthew Arnold) (1822-1888)
  • What schoolboy of us has not rummaged his Greek dictionary in vain for a satisfactory account!
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
  • , title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}
  • To hastily search for something in a confined space and among many items by carelessly turning things over or pushing things aside.
  • * , chapter=8
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Philander went into the next room

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Commotion; disturbance.
  • A thorough search, usually resulting in disorder.
  • * Walpole
  • He has such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony.
  • An unorganized collection of miscellaneous objects; a jumble.
  • (nautical) A place or room for the stowage of cargo in a ship; also, the act of stowing cargo; the pulling and moving about of packages incident to close stowage; formerly written romage .
  • Quotations

    ''"And this, I take it,
    ''Is the main motive of our preparations
    ''The source of this our watch, and the chief head
    Of this post-haste and rummage in the land."
    - Horatio, in "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, act 1 scene 1 l 103-106

    See also

    * rummage sale

    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

    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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