delf

Definitions

1. Diplôme d'étude de langue française, a French-language qualification.
2. A mine, quarry, pit dug; ditch.
   UK, archaic, dialectal
3. 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.

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

CEFR level