Dig

Pronunciation

• IPA: /dɪɡ/
• Rhymes: -ɪɡ

Middle English diggen ("to dig"), alteration (possibly due to Middle French diguer or Danish dige) 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 *dʰīgʷ-, *dʰeygʷ- ("to stab, dig"). 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.

Full definition of dig

Verb

1. (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.
   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.
• 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 8, 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.
2. (transitive) To get by digging; to take from the ground; often with up.
   to dig potatoes;   to dig up gold
3. (mining) To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.
4. (US, slang, dated) To work like a digger; to study ploddingly and laboriously.
5. (figurative) To investigate, to research, often followed by out or up.
   to dig up evidence;   to dig out the facts
• 2013, Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Eyeglasses, 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.
6. To thrust; to poke.
• Robynson (More's Utopia)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.

Derived terms

• dig in
• dig into
• dig over
• dig out
• dig up

Noun

1. An archeological investigation.
2. (US, colloquial, dated) A plodding and laborious student.
3. A thrust; a poke.He guffawed and gave me a dig in the ribs after telling his latest joke.
4. See digs.

Synonyms

• (archaeological investigation) excavation

From African American Vernacular English; due to lack of writing of slave speech, etymology is Unknown to trace, but it has been suggested that it is from Wolof dëgg, dëgga ("to understand, to appreciate").

Smitherman, Geneva (2000), Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner (revised ed.), Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ISBN 0-395-96919-0

It has also been suggested that it is from Irish dtuig.

Random House Unabridged, 2001

Others do not propose a distinct etymology, instead considering this a semantic shift of the existing English term (compare dig in/dig into).

eg: OED, "dig", from ME vt diggen

Verb

1. (slang) To understand or show interest in.You dig?
2. (slang) To appreciate, or like.Baby, I dig you.

Anagrams

• GDI, IgD