crate-dig

verb

ˈkrāt-ˌdig 

variants or crate dig

crate-dug ˈkrāt-ˌdəg  or crate dug; crate-digging or crate digging; crate-digs or crate digs

transitive + intransitive

: to shop for rare, vintage, or obscure recordings especially by searching through crates of secondhand merchandise

He spent his teenage years crate-digging for classic disco, funk and soul vinyl in charity shops …

—Paul Lester

… they were able to crate-dig for rare 7" records from the 60s and 70s …

—Cathy Peters and Moses Iten

If you think crate-digging for records is hard, try old VHS tapes and DVDs.

—M. Night (Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan), quoted in The Dallas Morning News

"I stumbled on the original sample while crate digging one day, took it straight to the lab and added drums. …"

—Posdnuos, quoted in Rolling Stone

… their bins are always full of both legendary albums and some of the best, obscure records of all time. Be ready to spend hours here as you crate dig to find your next grail.

—Andrew DaRosa

This highly enjoyable compilation collects mostly obscure tracks from Stax, the illustrious Memphis soul label, that were crate dug and sampled by hip-hop stars.

—Larry Katz

crate dig noun

or crate-dig

plural crate digs or crate-digs

I struggle to pass a record store, no matter how busy I am, without going in for a crate dig.

—Amanda Marcotte

crate-digger noun

or crate digger or less commonly cratedigger

plural crate-diggers or crate diggers also cratediggers

… Bogotá is a (vinyl) music lover's paradise. Crate-diggers can find mint-condition classics and rarities …

—Monika Fabian

Examples of crate-dig in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There’s definitely a nonzero chance that samples from this record might be found in ’90s releases from DJ Shadow and his fellow crate-digging beat miners. —Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 6 Nov. 2023

Earlier this year, German crate-digging label Analog Africa released a retrospective of Mayorga’s more exploratory electronic works, while a new album of original compositions titled Cumbia Pishcodélica is slated for release in the coming months via Musicoteca Ecuador. —Richard Villegas, Rolling Stone, 2 Oct. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

2005, in the meaning defined above