What does "delve" mean?

Delve: To dig into; to penetrate; to trace out; to fathom. I can not delve him to the root. Shak.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To dig or labor with a spade, or as with a spade; to labor as a drudge. Delve may I not: I shame to beg. Wyclif (Luke xvi. 3).
  2. 3.A place dug; a pit; a ditch; a den; a cave. Which to that shady delve him brought at last The very tigers from their delves Look out. Moore.

Sources