different between delve vs forage

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?lv/
• Rhymes: -?lv

Etymology 1

From Middle English delven, from Old English delfan (“to dig, dig out, burrow, bury”), from Proto-Germanic *delban? (“to dig”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?elb?- (“to dig”). Cognate with West Frisian dolle (“to dig, delve”), Dutch delven (“to dig, delve”), Low German dölven (“to dig, delve”), dialectal German delben, telben (“to dig, delve”).

Verb

delve (third-person singular simple present delves, present participle delving, simple past delved or (obsolete) dolve, past participle delved or (archaic) dolven)

1. (intransitive) To dig the ground, especially with a shovel.

   • 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.

2. (transitive, intransitive) 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.

3. (transitive, intransitive) 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, Arthur Conan Doyle, 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
• undelve

Related terms

• dolven

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English delve, delf, dælf, from Old English delf, ?edelf (“digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug out, delf, ditch”). More at delf.

Noun

delve (plural delves)

1. (now rare) 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 [...].

   • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage 2015, p. 75:

     I put the clods on top the delve and gave it all a good thumping down with my feet.

Related terms

• stonedelf

Anagrams

• devel

Dutch

Verb

delve

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of delven

Anagrams

• velde

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English delfan.

Verb

delve

1. Alternative form of delven

Etymology 2

From Old English delf.

Noun

delve

1. Alternative form of delf

English

Etymology

From Middle English forage, from Old French fourage, forage, a derivative of fuerre (“fodder, straw”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *f?dar (“fodder, sheath”), from Proto-Germanic *f?dr? (“fodder, feed, sheath”), from Proto-Indo-European *patrom (“fodder”), *pat- (“to feed”), *p?y- (“to guard, graze, feed”). Cognate with Old High German fuotar (German Futter (“fodder, feed”)), Old English f?dor, f?þor (“food, fodder, covering, case, basket”), Dutch voeder (“forage, food, feed”), Danish foder (“fodder, feed”), Icelandic fóðr (“fodder, sheath”). More at fodder, food.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f??.?d??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?f???d??/
• (NYC, Ireland) IPA^(key): /?f???d??/
• Rhymes: -???d?

Noun

forage (countable and uncountable, plural forages)

1. Fodder for animals, especially cattle and horses.
   • 1819, Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe:^[1]

     “The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to compassion by the anxiety as well as address which the stranger displayed in tending his horse; for, muttering something about provender left for the keeper's palfrey, he dragged out of a recess a bundle of forage, which he spread before the knight's charger.

   • To invade the corn, and to their cells convey
     The plundered forage of their yellow prey

2. An act or instance of foraging.
   • 1803, John Marshall, The Life of George Washington

     Mawhood completed his forage unmolested.

   • 1860 September, “A Chapter on Rats”, in The Knickerbocker, volume 56, number 3, page 304:

     ‘My dears,’ he discourses to them — how he licks his gums, long toothless, as he speaks of his forages into the well-stored cellars: […]

3. (obsolete) The demand for fodder etc by an army from the local population

Translations

Further reading

• Forage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Forage in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Verb

forage (third-person singular simple present forages, present participle foraging, simple past and past participle foraged)

1. To search for and gather food for animals, particularly cattle and horses.
   • 1841, James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer, Chapter 8:

     The message said that the party intended to hunt and forage through this region, for a month or two, afore it went back into the Canadas.

2. To rampage through, gathering and destroying as one goes.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1, Scene 2:

     And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince, / Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, / Making defeat on the full power of France, / Whiles his most mighty father on a hill / Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp / Forage in blood of French nobility.

3. To rummage.
4. Of an animal: to seek out and eat food.

Derived terms

• forager

Translations

French

Etymology

From forer +? -age

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f?.?a?/

Noun

forage m (plural forages)

1. drilling (act of drilling)

Derived terms

Further reading

• “forage” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle English

Alternative forms

• fforage

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French fourage; the first element is cognate to fodder.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f???ra?d?(?)/, /f??ra?d?(?)/

Noun

forage (uncountable)

1. forage (especially dry)

Descendants

• English: forage

References

• “f??r??e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-10-17.