Word.ws English Dictionary

delf

delf noun: a mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch. Also the alternative form of delft.

delf: a mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch
Image: Lobsterthermidor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

delf (plural delfs or delves)

  1. (UK, archaic, dialectal) A mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch.
  2. 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.
    • two delves gules

Noun (2) capitalized: DELF

DELF

  1. Diplôme d'étude de langue française, a French-language qualification.

Also used as

delf is also the alternative form of delft.

Forms of delf

pluraldelfs
pluraldelves
alternative formdelft
alternative formdelve

Origin of delf

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.

Words formed from delf

Words that rhyme with delf

38 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about delf

What does delf mean?
Delf means a mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch.
What part of speech is delf?
Delf is a noun.
What is the plural of delf?
The plural of delf is delfs.

Words near delf in the dictionary

  1. delexicalized
  2. delexicalizes
  3. delexicalizing
  4. delexically
  5. Delești
  6. delf
  7. delfie
  8. DelFierro
  9. DelFierros
  10. delfies
  11. Delfin Albano

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: delf (page history and authors); DELF (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “delf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/delf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.