Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Dig

Dig (dĭg), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Dug (dŭg) or Digged (dĭgd); p. pr. & vb. n. Digging. — Digged is archaic.] [OE. diggen, perh. the same word as diken, dichen (see Dike, Ditch); cf. Dan. dige to dig, dige a ditch; or akin to E. 1st dag. √67.] 1. To turn up, or delve in, (earth) with a spade or a hoe; to open, loosen, or break up (the soil) with a spade, or other sharp instrument; to pierce, open, or loosen, as if with a spade.

Be first to dig the ground. Dryden.

2. To get by digging; as, to dig potatoes, or gold.

3. To hollow out, as a well; to form, as a ditch, by removing earth; to excavate; as, to dig a ditch or a well.

4. To thrust; to poke. [Colloq.]

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. Robynson (More's Utopia).

To dig down, to undermine and cause to fall by digging; as, to dig down a wall. — To dig from, out of, out, or up, to get out or obtain by digging; as, to dig coal from or out of a mine; to dig out fossils; to dig up a tree. The preposition is often omitted; as, the men are digging coal, digging iron ore, digging potatoes. — To dig in, to cover by digging; as, to dig in manure.

Dig, v. i. 1. To work with a spade or other like implement; to do servile work; to delve.

Dig for it more than for hid treasures. Job iii. 21.

I can not dig; to beg I am ashamed. Luke xvi. 3.

2. (Mining) To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.

3. To work like a digger; to study ploddingly and laboriously. [Cant, U.S.]

Dig, n. 1. A thrust; a punch; a poke; as, a dig in the side or the ribs. See Dig, v. t., 4. [Colloq.]

2. A plodding and laborious student. [Cant, U.S.]

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.