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Business vocabularyphrasal verb · /daɪv ɪn/

dive in

In simple English

Start working on something immediately and enthusiastically, without spending too much time planning or hesitating.

Someone heard a teammate say "let's dive in" at work and wants to know what it means.

At a glanceCEFR B1–B2
Commonness
Versatility
FormalityCasualFormalCasual
Spoken ↔ WrittenSpokenWrittenBoth
Directness ↔ DiplomaticDirectDiplomaticDirect
Region

Say it like this

Let's dive in and see what we find.
I'm going to dive in on the bug fix this morning.
Feel free to dive in whenever you're ready.
We dove in and got it done before lunch.
Ready to dive in? Let's start with the API.

Real examples

Standup

"I'm going to dive in on the payment integration today."

Slack message

"The spec is ready—feel free to dive in whenever you have time."

GitHub PR

"Diving in on the refactor now. Will push updates by EOD."

Jira ticket

"Ready to dive in once the design files are uploaded."

Retrospective

"We dove in too fast without checking the requirements first."

Sprint planning

"Let's dive in and estimate these tickets."

Pair programming

"I'll share my screen and we can dive in together."

Don't say this

I will dive in the code.
I will dive in on the code.Use 'dive in' alone or 'dive in on [task]'. Don't say 'dive in the'.
Let's dive into in the meeting.
Let's dive into the meeting.Don't mix 'dive in' and 'dive into'—pick one form.
I dived in the project yesterday.
I dove in on the project yesterday.In US English, 'dove' is the common past tense. In UK English, 'dived' is also correct. Always add 'on' before the task.

Other forms

base form

dive in

"Let's dive in and start coding."

present continuous

diving in

"I'm diving in on the backend work now."

past tense (US)

dove in

"We dove in and finished early."

past tense (UK)

dived in

"The team dived in right after the meeting."

present perfect

have dived/dove in

"She has already dove in on the bug."

Often used with

dive in onUsed before a specific task: 'dive in on the feature'
dive in and startCommon pair: 'dive in and start working'
ready to dive inShows you're prepared to begin immediately
just dive inEmphasizes starting without overthinking
dive in togetherUsed for collaborative work or pairing

Similar words

jump inVery similar meaning, slightly more casual
get startedMore neutral, less energetic
dig inSimilar energy, often implies hard work ahead
kick offOften used for projects or meetings, more formal

Opposites

hold offwaithesitatedelayput off

Practice

Try it

4 quick exercises

Choose the most natural sentence

1. You want to tell your team you're starting the task now.

Find the error

2. Let's dive into in the new feature together.

Complete the sentence

3. The team is ready to _____ on the migration work.

Rewrite more naturally

4. I will begin the code work now without waiting.

More words

Questions

Quick poll

Have you said "dive in" in a standup this week?

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