DIG

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.

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

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

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.(b) To entrench oneself so as to give stronger resistance; -- used of warfare. Also figuratively, esp. in the phrase to dig in one's heels.

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.

To take ore from its bed, in distinction from making excavations in search of ore.

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

A thrust; a punch; a poke; as, a dig in the side or the ribs. See Dig, v. t.,

[Colloq.]

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