digamma (digama)

[L. digamma, also di gammon, digammos, digging. [ ME. diggen, dyggen (once deggen, alphabet, and retained longest among the Lo IMG:content-2622.png:[ocr errors] earlier dikien, usually diken or a ibilated di chen, dig, Thei wente to the tresour, as Merlin hem taught, in the foreste, and lete digge in the erthe and fonde the tresour that neuer er [before] was seyn, and toke it oute of the IMG:content-2623.png:[blocks in formation] 2. To study hard; give much time to study; grind. [Students' slang, U. S.] Here the sunken eye and sallow countenance bespoke the man who dug sixteen hours per diem. Harvard Register , 1827-28, p. 303. To dig out, to decamp or abscond suddenly: as, the defaulter stole a horse, and dug out. [Slang, U. S.] II. trans. 1. To excavate; make a pa age through or into, or remove, by loosening and taking away material: usually followed by an adverb: as, to dig up the ground; to dig out a choked tunnel. Who digs hills because they do aspire, Throws down one mountain to cast up a higher. IMG:content-2624.png:[blocks in formation] Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein. Prov. xxvi. 27. I believe more Men do dig their Graves with their Teeth than with the Tankard. Howell, Letters, ii. 3. 3. To break up and turn over piecemeal, as a portion of ground: as, to dig a garden with a spade; a hog digs the ground with his snout. Dikeres and delueres digged [var. dikeden (A), vii. 100] vp the balkes. Piers Plowman (B), vi. 109. 4. To excavate a pa age or tunnel for; make a way of escape for by digging: as, he dug IMG:content-2625.png:[blocks in formation] IMG:content-2626.png:[blocks in formation] T. Burnet , Theory of the Earth. Diffusive Cold does the whole Earth invade, Like a Disease, through all its Veins 'tis spread. Congreve, Imit. of Horace, I. ix. 2. 2. Extending in all directions; widely reach ing; extensive: as, diffusive charity or beney olence. No fear that the religious opinions he holds sacred,... or the politics he cultivates, will keep back any from his share of the diffusive good. R. Choate, Addre es, p. 203. He [Hartley Cole ridge] thinks intellect is now of a more diffusive character than some fifty years since, for progre ive it can not be. Caroline Fox , Journal, p. 21. IMG:content-2627.png:[blocks in formation] It was a consonant, and appears to have had the force of the English w. It went out of use with the disappearance of the sound signified by it from Greek pronunciation, but is restorable on metrical and other evidence in many ancient Greek words, especially in Homer. digamma ted (di-gam'ā-ted), a. [ It is more than forty years since Richard Payne Knight published in 1820 his famous digamma ted Iliad-or rather Vilviad - of Homer. J. Hadley, E ays, p. 56. To the digamma ted and older form of the Greek oblique cases there corresponds also the Latin Jovem, Jovis, Jovi. Grimm, Teut. Mythol. (trans.), L. 193. 2. Formed as if with a digamma: as, the dig am mated cro , a phallic symbol. digamous (dig'a-mus), a. [