Definition of "delve"

Delve of convenient depth your thrashing floor.

1697, Virgil, “Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

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.

1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […]

I cannot delve him to the root.

1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

She was intensely eager to delve into the mystery of Mr. Joplin and his brief case.

1943, Emile C. Tepperman, Calling Justice, Inc.!

And then they made an oratory behind the altar, and would have dolven for to have laid the body in that oratory […]

1483, Jacobus de Voragine, translated by William Caxton, The Golden Legend

They dolve a grave beneath the arrow And covered it with brere.

1865, Sebastian Evans, Brother Fabian's Manuscript: And Other Poems, page 59

Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must be done.

1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter IV, in The White Company

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 [...].

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

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

1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 75