dig

From Middle English diggen (“to dig”), alteration (possibly due to Danish dige) of Old English dīcian (“to dig a ditch, to mound up earth”) (compare Old English dīcere (“digger”)) from dīc, dīċ (“dike, ditch”) from Proto-Germanic *dīkaz, *dīkiją (“pool, puddle”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰīgʷ-, *dʰeygʷ- (“to stab, dig”). Additionally, Middle English diggen may derive from an unrecorded suffixed variant, *dīcgian. Akin to Danish dige (“to dig, raise a dike”), Swedish dika (“to dig ditches”). Related to Middle French diguer (“to dig”), from Old French dikier, itself a borrowing of the same Germanic root (from Middle Dutch dijc). More at ditch, dike.

• IPA^(key): /dɪɡ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪɡ

dig (third-person singular simple present digs, present participle digging, simple past and past participle dug)

1. (transitive, intransitive) 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.

   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.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:

     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.

2. (transitive) To get by digging; to take from the ground; often with up.

   to dig potatoes;   to dig up gold

3. (mining) To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.
4. (US, slang, dated) To work like a digger; to study ploddingly and laboriously.
   • Paul L. Ford

     Peter dug at his books all the harder.

5. (figuratively) To investigate, to research, often followed by out or up.

   to dig up evidence;   to dig out the facts

   • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

     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.

6. To thrust; to poke.

   He dug an elbow into my ribs and guffawed at his own joke.

   • Robynson (More's Utopia)

     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.

7. (volleyball) To defend against an attack hit by the opposing team by successfully passing the ball

dig (plural digs)

1. An archeological or paleontological investigation, or the site where such an investigation is taking place.
2. (US, colloquial, dated) A plodding and laborious student.
3. A thrust; a poke.

   He guffawed and gave me a dig in the ribs after telling his latest joke.

4. (Britain, dialectal, dated) A tool for digging.
5. (volleyball) A defensive pass of the ball that has been attacked by the opposing team.

• (archaeological investigation): excavation

• digs

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”).[1] It has also been suggested that it is from Irish dtuig.[2] Others do not propose a distinct etymology, instead considering this a semantic shift of the existing English term (compare dig in/dig into).[3]

• IPA^(key): /dɪɡ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪɡ

dig (third-person singular simple present digs, present participle digging, simple past and past participle dug)

1. (slang) To understand or show interest in.

   You dig?

2. (slang) To appreciate, or like.

   Baby, I dig you.

Shortening.

• IPA^(key): /dɪd͡ʒ/

dig (uncountable)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Digoxin.

   dig toxicity

• GDI, GDI+, GID, IgD, gid

• IPA^(key): /daj/
• Rhymes: -aj

dig (nominative du)

1. (personal) you (2nd person singular object pronoun, informal)

Also used as reflexive pronoun.

• din

• dej (strongly colloquial)

From Old Norse þik, from Proto-Germanic *þek, from Proto-Indo-European *te-ge.

• IPA^(key): /dɛj/

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛj

dig

1. you (objective case, singular)

   Jag såg dig aldrig där

   I never saw you there

2. reflexive case of du: compare yourself

   Skulle du vilja lära dig jonglera?

   Would you like to learn how to juggle?

   Skar du dig på kniven?

   Did you cut yourself on the knife?

Note that some verbs have special senses when used reflexively. For example, do not confuse du lär dig att... ("you learn to...") [reflexive] with jag lär dig att... ("I teach you to...") or du lär dig själv att... ("you teach yourself to..."). Here, lär means teach(es) if it is not reflexive, but learn(s) if it is reflexive. Thus, the separate pronoun "dig själv" is needed when object and subject agree, even though the verb should not be used in the reflexive case.

Also note that in the imperative, when there's usually no explicit subject given, the "själv" is dropped.

• dig själv