Noun: delve
| Singular | delve |
| Plural | delves |
Sample Sentences
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the wise Merlin whylome wont (they say) / To make his wonne, low vnderneath the ground, / In a deepe delue, farre from the vew of day [...]. [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:]
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I put the clods on top the delve and gave it all a good thumping down with my feet. [1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 75:]
Nouns inflected like delve
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English delve, delf, dælf, from Old English delf, ġedelf (“digging”) and dælf (“that which is dug out, delf, ditch”). More at delf. See: Middle English Nouns '
delve', Old English Nouns '
delf'.