Definition of "dig"

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.

Peter dug at his books all the harder.

1894, Paul Leicester Ford, The Honorable Peter Stirling

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

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, […]

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

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.

1892, Occident - Volume 22, page 36

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

«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, 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, page 432

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 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