Meaning
A thorough, detailed examination or analysis of a subject, also used as a verb meaning to examine something in depth. Common in business, journalism, and online content, where it signals substance rather than a quick summary; neutral register. Neutral register; so widespread in business and media talk that it can read as buzzword filler. Regional use: General English; strongest in business, media, and online contexts.
Origin
Merriam-Webster's history of the phrase finds deep modifying dive as far back as the eighteenth century and literal uses about deep-sea divers across the twentieth, but dates the figurative thorough-examination sense to the late twentieth century, with early examples clustered in business writing, such as a January 1998 Automotive Industries piece and a January 1999 report in Purchasing. Dictionary.com independently records the noun as first used between 1985 and 1990. In the 2010s the phrase underwent a functional shift into a verb, with writers now saying they deep-dived into topics, and journalism and corporate slide decks made it ubiquitous; by inference, its buzzword status owes much to analysts and consultancies branding long reports as deep dives.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- deep dives
- deep-dive (hyphenated modifier)
- deep-dived
- take a deep dive
Usage Examples
- The podcast did a two-hour deep dive into the merger.
- Before investing a cent, she did a deep dive into the company's finances.
- Our team deep-dived into the customer complaints and found one broken workflow.