delf

American  

[delf] / dɛlf /

noun

delfs plural

1. British. in some dialects, a pit, trench, or ditch.

2. British. in Northern England, a small mine or quarry.

3. Heraldry. a device, conventionally in the form of a plain square, that represents a shovelful of turf. Compare billet.

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• delfs
  plural

Example Sentences

Then Sam he loups to the dresser-shelf— “I daur ye wallop my leddy’s delf; I daur ye break but a single skelf Frae her cheeny bowl, my man!”

From Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 by Willis, Herbert

They were sitting behind the cabin door, eating out of a delf plate which they had placed between them.

From What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales by Dulcken, H. W. (Henry William)

And what did he carry away but straw and broken delf?

From The Green Helmet and Other Poems by Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)

A whiff of peat-smoke; A gleam of delf on the dresser within; A woman’s voice crooning, as if to a child.

From The Mountainy Singer by MacCathmhaoil, Seosamh

"But, oh! look at my chaynee!" said the widow, clasping her hands, and casting a look of despair at the shattered delf that lay around her; "look at my chaynee!"

From Handy Andy, Volume One A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes by Lover, Samuel