dig
An archeological or paleontological investigation, or the site where such an investigation is taking place.
Noun
- An archeological or paleontological investigation, or the site where such an investigation is taking place.
Synonyms: excavation
- Any act of digging to find or retrieve something.
- Iron Springs offers a guided clam dig for first timers or those who are rusty at spotting the clam's show at low tide. It includes a license and all the equipment you'll need to catch your limit on Copalis Beach […] -...
- A thrust; a poke.
- He guffawed and gave me a dig in the ribs after telling his latest joke.
Synonyms: jab
- A hard blow, especially (boxing) a straight left-hander delivered under the opponent's guard.
- […] 'let him go, I tell you, or I'll be after breaking your ugly mug,' and with that I gave him a dig that knocked him into smithereens. - 1836, The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée, volume 7, page 167:
- A defensive pass of the ball that has been attacked by the opposing team.
- An innings.
- A cutting, sarcastic remark.
- Buckram ! that's a dig at my trade. - 1838, John Baldwin Buckstone, The Irish Lion. A Farce, in One Act, page 15:
- 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...
- 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...
Synonyms: jibe
- The occupation of digging for gold.
- 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...
- A plodding and laborious student.
- 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 tool for digging.
- A rare or interesting vinyl record bought second-hand.
- a £1 charity shop dig
Origin
From Middle English diggen (“to dig”, 13th c.), an alteration of dīken, from Old English dīcian (“to dig a ditch, mound up earth”), from Proto-West Germanic *dīkōn, which see for cognates. This verb is denominal from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz (“pool, puddle; dyke, ditch”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- (“to stab, dig”). The form with g may have been influenced by Old French *diguer, a variant of dikier, itself from the West Germanic verb above. French forms with g are attested only in the 15th c., thus 200 years later than in English. On the other hand, French has according forms also for the underlying noun (cf. digue) and the phonetic development is more plausible in French than in English.
Forms
Related
Derived
Noun medicine, sciences
- Digoxin.
- dig toxicity
Origin
Shortening.
Noun obsolete
- A duck.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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,...
Origin
Unknown. Compare Middle English digge.
Forms
Related
Verb Entry 4
- 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.
- To get by digging; to take from the ground; often with up.
- to dig potatoes
- to dig up gold
- To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.
- To work like a digger; to study ploddingly and laboriously.
- Peter dug at his books all the harder. - 1894, Paul Leicester Ford, The Honorable Peter Stirling:
- To investigate, to research, often followed by out or up.
- 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...
- To thrust; to poke.
- 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...
- To defend against an attack hit by the opposing team by successfully passing the ball
Forms
Derived
crate-dig dig a hole for oneself dig around dig deep dig down dig for victory diggable diggety dig in dig in one's heels dig into dig oneself in a hole dig oneself into a hole dig one's grave with a fork dig one's grave with a fork and spoon dig one's heels in dig one's own grave dig out dig out of a hole dig over dig round dig up dig up dirt dig yourself
Verb dated, slang
- To understand.
- 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...
- Osiris: Pimpin' has been around since the world started turnin' and it's gonna keep right on turnin' right along with it. Until this little planet rotates off its axis as a result of its core overheating and explodes...
- To appreciate, or like.
- 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, “California”, in Blue:
Origin
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).