Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also dig off) to leave, to depart.

c.1855		J.F. Kelly Humors of Falconbridge 384: Mad and furious, the young chaps made a general onslaught on the people present, who ‘dug out’ very quick [DA].
1876		Besant & Rice Golden Butterfly II 82: I spent most of the dollars, and thought I had better dig out for a new location.
1904		Kipling ‘Their Lawful Occasions Pt I’ in Traffics and Discoveries 119: The sooner he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders [...] the better pleased Commander Fasset will be.
1910		B.L. Bowen ‘Word-List From Western New York’ in DN III:vi 440: dig out, v. To start; to leave. ‘I guess I’d better be digging out for home.’.
1917		C. Mathewson Sec. Base Sloan xiii 183: Wayne circled and dug out for second [DA].
1927		C. Woofter ‘Dialect Words and Phrases from West-Central West Virginia’ in AS II:8 352: The men dug out in a hurry.
1933		(con. 1860s) R. Bradford Kingdom Coming 192: Jest waitin’ for you to grow up and be a man, so’s I c’d dig out.
1945		C. Himes If He Hollers 13: I mashed the starter and dug off without hearing the rest of it.
1946		(con. 1910s) J. Thompson Heed the Thunder (1994) 12: And wasn’t it likely that he would have dug out or that the neighbor would have relented, anyway, in time?

2. to attempt to get something one desires.

1969

Current Sl. III:3 5: Dig . . . out, v. To try hard.

3. (Irish) to separate from.

1989

H. Leonard Out after Dark 29: What was all that about? [...] What ailed you? I thought you’d have to be dug out of him.

4. (US black) to have sexual intercourse.

1993		Ice Cube ‘Ghetto Bird’ 🎵 By 2 AM I was diggin’ her out.
1995		L. Stavsky et al. A2Z 28/1: He be diggin’ her out under the boardwalk.

5. in trans. use of sense 1, to throw out.

2012

(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 298: The girl on the desk stares at me like I’m a cunt, like she’s about to dig me out.

6. to disparage, to scold.

1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Listened her digging me out. She was well vex.
2019		Times Times2 3 June 3/1: Love Island: a handy glossary Digging out Putting someone down.