Meanings
- obsoleteuncountablestraw or reeds.
Reet is that shilf we have on older houses here. They do take it off sometimes and change to new.
2021, Heike Thieme, Mable: my naturally biggest Love to our dog !, page 642 more examples
Five-and-twenty of them are tied together and laid at the depth of one fathom at most on sunk posts, as the sevrugas go to shallow places and among the shilf.
1800, William Tooke, View of the Russian Empire During the Reign of Catharine the Second, page 56Two loads of clay, and one load of coarse shilf mixed and wetted, and trodden together to lump […]
1849, The Ecclesiologist: Volume 9, page 288 - dialectaluncountableCoarse shale or slate fragments.
Below the statum of tin ground is a bed of stiff clay called shilf or shale.
1808, The Literary panorama - Volume 4, Issue 1808, page 5471 more example
So, too, will shilf, the name given to the little pieces of waste slate which are abundant in Cornwall: one part of shilf to two of mud and straw was the usual recipe for 'clob', as the Cornish often called it.
1962, Connoisseur Year Book and Diary, page 104
Origin
- GermanSchilf“sedge”
- Englishshilf
Compare German Schilf (“sedge”).
More words from German
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
shilf. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shilf
“shilf.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shilf. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shilf,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shilf.
Source: shilf on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.