delf

See also: DELF

English

Alternative forms

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. (archaic, UK, dialectal) 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 18 January 2012:
      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

References

Anagrams

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • Audio:(file)

Verb

delf

  1. inflection of delven:
    1. first-person singular present indicative
    2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
    3. imperative

Middle Dutch

Alternative forms

Etymology

From delven (“to delve”). This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. Particularly: “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

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

References

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]
  • Rhymes: -elf

Noun

delf n (nominative plural delf)

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

Declension

Strong a-stem:

singular plural
nominative delf delf
accusative delf delf
genitive delfes delfa
dative delfe delfum

Derived terms

Descendants

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