dig

They dug an eight-foot ditch along the side of the road.

In the wintertime, heavy truck tires dig into the road, forming potholes.

If the plane can't pull out of the dive it is in, it'll dig a hole in the ground.

My seven-year-old son always digs a hole in the middle of his mashed potatoes and fills it with gravy before he starts to eat them.

Miss Thorn began digging up the turf with her lofter: it was a painful moment for me. ¶ “You might at least have tried me, Mrs. Cooke,” I said.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

(transitive, intransitive) To move hard-packed earth out of the way, especially downward to make a hole with a shovel. Or to drill, or the like, through rocks, roads, or the like. More generally, to make any similar hole by moving material out of the way.

to dig potatoes

to dig up gold

(transitive) To get by digging; to take from the ground; often with up.

(mining) To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.

Peter dug at his books all the harder.

1894, Paul Leicester Ford, The Honorable Peter Stirling:

(US, slang, dated) To work like a digger; to study ploddingly and laboriously.

to dig up evidence

to dig out the facts

Digging deeper, the invention of eyeglasses is an elaboration of the more fundamental development of optics technology. The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.

2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

(figurative) To investigate, to research, often followed by out or up.

He dug an elbow into my ribs and guffawed at his own joke.

You should have seen children […] dig and push their mothers under the sides, saying thus to them: Look, mother, how great a lubber doth yet wear pearls.

1551, Thomas More, “(please specify the Internet Archive page)”, in Raphe Robynson [i.e., Ralph Robinson], transl., A Fruteful, and Pleasaunt Worke of the Best State of a Publyque Weale, and of the Newe Yle Called Utopia: […], London: […] [Steven Mierdman for] Abraham Vele, […], →OCLC:

(volleyball) To defend against an attack hit by the opposing team by successfully passing the ball

en-verb

dig (third-person singular simple present digs, present participle digging, simple past and past participle dug or (archaic) digged)

digs (present singular third-person)
digging (participle present)
dug (participle past)
dug (past)
digged (archaic participle past)
digged (archaic past)

he who digs a pit for others falls in himself

'eri

to move hard-packed earth out of the way

From Middle English diggen (“to dig”), alteration of Old English dīcian (“to dig a ditch, to mound up earth”) (compare Old English dīcere (“digger”)) from dīc, dīċ (“dike, ditch”) from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz, *dīkiją (“pool, puddle”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- (“to stab, dig”). Additionally, Middle English diggen may derive from an unrecorded suffixed variant, *dīcgian. Akin to Danish dige (“to dig, raise a dike”), Swedish dika (“to dig ditches”). Related to Middle French diguer (“to dig”), from Old French dikier, itself a borrowing of the same Germanic root (from Middle Dutch dijc). More at ditch, dike.


dig

An archeological or paleontological investigation, or the site where such an investigation is taking place.

He guffawed and gave me a dig in the ribs after telling his latest joke.

Why this already very fast train should be speeded up still further, when none of the other more easily timed S.R. West of England trains has a single minute pared from its schedule, is unexplained - unless this is a playful dig at the Western Region, most of whose expresses, by reason of additional stops, will be decelerated from the same date.

1961 October, “The winter timetables of British Railways: Southern Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 593:

(volleyball) A defensive pass of the ball that has been attacked by the opposing team.

Buckram ! that's a dig at my trade.

1838, John Baldwin Buckstone, The Irish Lion. A Farce, in One Act, page 15:

Entitled 'On Several Mistakes of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia', this document is broader, more theoretical and more rambling than the Polish equivalent, identifying deep problems in many spheres. But it does get in a few digs at Slánský, accusing him of having made mistakes in recruitment to the communist party.

2012, Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56, page ccxcix:

Unfortunately, the man was too busy, although he said hello to the Young Man politely enough and found the time to make a few digs about the postponement of the elections.

2013, William T. Vollmann, An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World:

In 'Sorted for E's and Whizz', Pulp's Jarvis Cocker wrote about losing an important part of his brain somewhere in a field in Hampshire, and took a dig at the rave scene for being hypocritical – idealistic and friendly when everyone was coming up on their pills, less so when everyone's coming down and you're trying to get a lift home – and essentially meaningless.

2018, Paul Maunder, The Wind At My Back: A Cycling Life:

She could have made a dig about the size of his rockets.

2021 December 8, Arwa Mahdawi, “Elon Musk is learning a hard lesson: never date a musician”, in The Guardian:

Don Quixote told us that Western Australia was the same to him as any other country, except that it possessed the charm of novelty, and he assured us that as soon as he was well enough he would be off on the "dig" once more.

1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 207:

Between the two extremes of college men the unsocial dig and the flunking swell, lies the majority, who, acknowledging the duty and merit of hard work, see the value in social and recreative line, but are at somewhat of a loss, seemingly, how to proportionize the time given to the different sides of college life, or how far to allow themselves to go on the more attractive side.

(US, colloquial, dated) A plodding and laborious student.

(UK, dialect, dated) A tool for digging.

a £1 charity shop dig

(music, slang) A rare or interesting vinyl record bought second-hand.


dig

You dig?

McCord has blown. Mitchell has blown. No tap on my telephone / Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean / It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean

1974, “H2Ogate Blues”, in Winter in America, performed by Gil Scott-Heron:

Baby, I dig you.

«And dig her!» yelled Dean, pointing at another woman. «Oh, I love, love, love women! I think women are wonderful! I love women!»

1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 6, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC, part 2:

Oh, but California / California, I'm coming home / I'm going to see the folks I dig

1971, Joni Mitchell (lyrics and music), “California”, in Blue:

Louie said, "I dig this Theo. I'm gonna learn Swahili and rap with him."

1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 432:

(dated slang, transitive) To appreciate, or like.

en-verb

dig (third-person singular simple present digs, present participle digging, simple past and past participle dug)

digs (present singular third-person)
digging (participle present)
dug (participle past)
dug (past)

brát

slang: to understand or show interest in

From African American Vernacular English; due to lack of writing of slave speech, etymology is difficult to trace, but it has been suggested that it is from Wolof dëgg, dëgga (“to understand, to appreciate”). It has also been suggested that it is from Irish dtuig, thus being a Doublet of twig. Others do not propose a distinct etymology, instead considering this a semantic shift of the existing English term (compare dig in/dig into).

unk

difficult


dig

dig toxicity


dig

Powltrey, &c, &c.
Item ten turkeys …
Item three Digs [an old Cheshire word for duck] and a Drake …
Item ffower Capons …
[The word's gloss has been inserted by Earwaker]

10 March, 1616, excerpt from "A true and perfect Inventory of all the Goods &c. which late were of Philippe Oldfeid," reprinted in 1890, J.P. Earwaker (ed., compiler), "Badwall Township: Berington of Moorsbarrow and Bradwall, Pedigree" in [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_history_of_the_ancient_parish_of_San/kkMHAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 The History of the Ancient Parish of Sandbach, Co. Chester. […] ]

dig, or digg, s.—A duck. A gentleman introduced a man to an old lady in America as an inhaitant of Cheshire, her old county. "I'll soon see," said she, "if he is reet Cheshire born. Tell me," said she to the man, "what a dig, a snig, a grig, a peckled poot, and a peannot are?" B. Kennett in his Glossary of the British Museum, has the word "dig." "As fierce as a dig," is a Lancashire and probably a Cheshire proverb, and reminds one of the Cloucestershire name for a sheep, viz.: "A Cotswold lion."

1877, Lieut.-Col. Egerton Leigh, M.P., A Glossary of Words Used in The Dialect of Cheshire., London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., pages 61–62:

Smith's farm was near to Parrs; new buildings had been built in the Hemp Croft. He carried coals in his cart by an inside chest, and had three hives of bees and several spinning wheels; his poultry comprised four hens, two diggs or ducks, and one drake. His total estate was £66. 10s.

1953, John Lunn, “Beasts on the Common, 1613”, in A Short History of the Township of Tyldesley […] , Longsight, Manchester: Co-operative Wholesale Society Limited: