delf
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.62 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Diplôme d'étude de langue française, a French-language qualification.
noun
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.
noun
Alternative form of delft (“style of earthenware”).
Example Sentences
- "two delves gules"
- "Five nothings in five plates of delf"
- "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."
- "That's all—do what we do, but noblier done— / Use plate, whereas we eat our meals off delf, / (To use a figure)."
- "Men can't munch from meatless pots and doughless delf."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: delf, *delban, *delbaną