delf

See also: DELF

English

Alternative forms

• delft, delve

Etymology

From Middle English delf, delve, dælf (“a quarry, clay pit, hole; an artificial watercourse, a canal, a ditch, a trench; a grave; a pitfall”), from Old English delf, ġedelf (“delving, digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug, delf, ditch”), from Proto-West Germanic *delban (“to dig”), from Proto-Germanic *delbaną (“to dig”). More at delve.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛlf

Noun

delf (plural delfs or delves)

1. A mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch.
2. (heraldry) A charge representing a square sod of turf, traditionally taking the form of a simple square (e.g. in the middle of an escutcheon), although modernly sometimes represented with the grass in profile.

   

   Canting arms of Delves, in Devon: Argent, a chevron gules fretty or between three delves sable.

   two delves gules

3. Alternative form of delft (“style of earthenware”)
   • 1723, Jonathan Swift, Stella at Wood Park:

     Five nothings in five plates of delf

   • 1848 April – 1849 October, E[dward] Bulwer-Lytton, chapter IV, in The Caxtons: A Family Picture, volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1849, →OCLC, part I, page 26:

     Suddenly a beautiful delf blue-and-white flower-pot, which had been set on the window-sill of an upper storey, fell to the ground with a crash, and the fragments spluttered up around my father's legs.

   • 1864, Robert Browning, “Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"”, in Wikisource, line 832‎^[1], retrieved 2012-01-18:

     That's all—do what we do, but noblier done— / Use plate, whereas we eat our meals off delf, / (To use a figure).

   • 1941, Sarah Atherton, Mark's Own, Bobbs-Merrill:

     Men can't munch from meatless pots and doughless delf.

Derived terms

• stonedelf

References

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “delf”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• FDLE, fled

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

delf

1. inflection of delven:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

Middle Dutch

Alternative forms

• delft

Etymology

From delven (“to delve”). This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. why -t in alt form

Noun

delf ?

1. Delft (a city in the modern Netherlands)

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: Delft

Further reading

• “delf”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000

Middle English

Alternative forms

• delfe, delve, dælf

Etymology

From Old English delf, from delfan (Middle English delven).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɛlf/, /dɛlv/

Noun

delf (plural delves)

1. A quarry (pit for digging stone or clay).
2. A man-made channel or stream; a water-filled ditch.
3. A hole or ditch; a delf.

Descendants

• English: delf, delve
• Scots: delf, delph

References

• “delf, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-12.

Old English

Etymology

From the verb delfan (“to delve, dig, dig out, burrow, bury”), from Proto-West Germanic *delban, from Proto-Germanic *delbaną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰelbʰ-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /delf/, [deɫf]

Noun

delf n (nominative plural delf)

1. digging, excavation
2. that which is dug: trench, quarry, canal

Declension

Declension of delf (strong a-stem)

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	delf	delf
accusative	delf	delf
genitive	delfes	delfa
dative	delfe	delfum

Derived terms

• delfere
• delfung
• delfīsen
• lēadġedelf
• underdelf
• ymbġedelf
• ġedelf

 

Descendants

• Middle English: delf, delfe, delve, dælf
  • English: delf, delve
  • Scots: delf, delph