dig
/dɪɡ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.22 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
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.
Intransitive verb; Transitive verb
verb
To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.
verb
To investigate, to research, often followed by out or up.
noun
An archeological or paleontological investigation, or the site where such an investigation is taking place.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "My seven-year-old son always digs a hole in the middle of his mashed potatoes and fills it with gravy before he starts to eat them."
- "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."
- "to dig potatoes"
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *dʰeygʷ-, diggen, dīcian, *dīkōn, *dīkaz, dëgg
Usage
- Intransitive verb
- Transitive verb
- American usage
- Dated
- Slang
- Archaic
- Colloquial
- British usage