DictionaryAI

dig

DIG/dɪɡ/

Verbdigs, digging, dug

Noun pluraldigs

20 meanings of dig

Practice

  1. 1
    make a holeverbtransitive or intransitive
    To remove earth, sand, rock, or similar material, especially downward with a tool, in order to make a hole.

    Workers dig trenches across the lot to lay the new water pipes.

    Rescue teams dug through the rubble for hours after the collapse.

    UsageThe past forms are dug: we dug, have dug (not incorrect: digged). Often dig a hole or dig through something.

    Similarexcavate, burrow, tunnel, shovel

    Oppositefill

  2. 2
    investigateverbfigurativelytransitive or intransitive
    To investigate or research something, searching out facts that are hidden or hard to reach.

    Investigators dig into financial records to trace the missing funds.

    Journalists dug up the senator's carefully buried past.

    UsageOften dig into records, dig up facts, or dig deeper.

    Similardelve, probe, investigate, unearth, research

    Note

    Here facts are buried, and research brings them to the surface. Digging deeper is the stock phrase for pushing an explanation back a level, as Henry Petroski does when he traces eyeglasses back to the older history of optics.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • Henry Petroski uses 'Digging deeper' when explaining that eyeglasses developed from more fundamental optics technology. en.wiktionary.org
  3. 3
    take from groundverbtransitive
    To obtain something by digging; to take it from the ground, often with up.

    Farmers dig carrots before the first hard frost arrives.

    Miners dug coal from these hills for generations.

    UsageOften dig up something, or dig it from the ground: dig up potatoes.

    Similarunearth, extract, mine, harvest

    Oppositebury, plant

  4. 4
    likeverbslangtransitive
    To like or appreciate someone or something; an informal slang use.

    She really digs jazz from the sixties.

    Louie said, "I dig this Theo. I'm gonna learn Swahili and rap with him."
    1976, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift

    Similarlike, enjoy, love, appreciate, fancy

    Oppositedislike, hate

    Note

    Here the slang verb turns from grasping to liking; its origin is told under the "understand" sense. It takes people as readily as things: Joni Mitchell's California (1971) uses it of the people the singer likes. In Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), "dig her!" means look at her and admire.

  5. 5
    archaeologynouncountable
    An archaeological or paleontological investigation, or the site where such work is being carried out.

    The dig revealed the foundations of a Roman villa.

    Volunteers spent the summer working at a fossil dig in Montana.

    UsageOften on a dig or an archaeological dig.

    Similarexcavation

  6. 6
    press intoverbtransitive
    To thrust or poke sharply, pressing into something.

    He dug his heels into the dirt to stop himself sliding.

    She would dig her nails into her palm whenever she felt nervous.

    UsageUsually dig a body part into something: dig your heels into the dirt.

    Similarpress, sink, drive, jab, poke

    Note

    The sense is an old one. Raphe Robynson's 1551 translation of Thomas More describes children who "dig and push their mothers under the sides". The noun a poke in the ribs keeps the same picture.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • Raphe Robynson translated Thomas More's Utopia into English, with the first edition published in 1551. archive.org
    • The translation describes children poking their mothers with the quoted wording, with spelling modernized; this confirms that the sense is old. archive.org
  7. 7
    mean remarknouncountable
    A cutting, sarcastic remark directed at someone.

    That remark was a not-so-subtle dig at her rival.

    The columnist slipped a few digs at the mayor into her article.

    UsageUsually a dig at someone; also get in a dig and a playful dig.

    Similarjibe

    Oppositecompliment

    Note

    A remark can land like an elbow, and this sense is the spoken version of a poke in the ribs. John Baldwin Buckstone has "that's a dig at my trade" in 1838, and Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain (2012) speaks of a document that "does get in a few digs".

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

  8. 8
    a volleyball savenouncountable
    In volleyball, a defensive pass of a ball that the opposing team has attacked hard.

    A diving dig sent the ball back up for the setter.

    The libero's clean dig set up the counterattack.

    Similarsave, return

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of dig apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 1–3, 5–8, 10–16

Old English dīcian, "to mound up earth, dig a ditch," became Middle English dīken, and an altered form, diggen, appears in the 13th century. Further back lie a Proto-Germanic word for a pool, dyke, or ditch and perhaps a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to stab, dig." The g may reflect the influence of an Old French variant, though French forms with g show up roughly 200 years after the English ones.

Meanings 4, 9

From African American Vernacular English; because slave speech was rarely written down, the origin is hard to trace. It has been suggested to come from Wolof dëgg, dëgga ("to understand, to appreciate"), or from Irish dtuig, making it a doublet of twig; others simply treat it as a semantic shift of the existing English word.

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

  • This sense of dig comes from African American Vernacular English. en.wiktionary.org
  • Scarce written records of enslaved people's speech make the origin difficult to trace. en.wiktionary.org
  • A Wolof origin meaning 'to understand, to appreciate' has been proposed. nssascholars.org
  • An Irish dtuig origin has also been proposed; under that explanation, dig and twig would be doublets. en.wiktionary.org
  • Some scholars explain this sense as a semantic development within English. listserv.linguistlist.org
Meaning 17

Origin unknown. A similar word, digge, meant "duck" in Middle English.