delf

• delft, delve

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-Germanic *delbaną (“to dig”). More at delve.

• Rhymes: -ɛlf

delf (plural delves)

1. A mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch.
2. (heraldry) A charge representing a square sod.
3. Alternative form of delft (“style of earthenware”)
   • 1864, Browning, Robert, “Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"”, in Wikisource, line 832‎, 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.

• stonedelf

• feld, fled

• Audio

  (file)

delf

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

delf ?

1. Delft (a city)

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Dutch: Delft

• “delf”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000

• delfe, delve, dælf

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

• IPA^(key): /dɛlf/, /dɛlv/

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.

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

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

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

• IPA^(key): /delf/

delf n (nominative plural delf)

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

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