delf

plural delfs · plural delves · alternative delft · alternative delve

1. UKarchaicdialectalA mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch.
2. governmentA 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

3. alternativeAlternative form of delft (“style of earthenware”).

   Five nothings in five plates of delf

   1723, Jonathan Swift, Stella at Wood Park

   3 more examples

   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.

   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

   That's all—do what we do, but noblier done— / Use plate, whereas we eat our meals off delf, / (To use a figure).

   1864, Robert Browning, “Mr. Sludge, "The Medium"”, in Wikisource, line 832, retrieved 18 Jan 2012

   Men can't munch from meatless pots and doughless delf.

   1941, Sarah Atherton, Mark's Own, Bobbs-Merrill

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