dell

See also: Dell, Dëll, and dell'

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: dĕl, IPA^(key): /dɛl/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛl

Etymology 1

From Middle English delle, del, from Old English dell (“small dale”), from Proto-West Germanic *dalljā, from Proto-Germanic *daljō (“a hollow”), related to *dalą (“valley, dale”).

Noun

dell (plural dells)

1. A valley or sunken area of ground, especially in the form of a natural hollow, small and deep.
   • 1794, William Blake, The Little Girl Found, lines 49-50

     To this day they dwell

     In a lonely dell.

   • 1722, Thomas Tickell, Kensington Gardens:

     In dells and dales, conceal'd from human sight.

Synonyms

• dale
• dingle
• vale
• valley
• See also Thesaurus:valley

Derived terms

• farmer in the dell
• Hazel Dell
• up hill and down dell

Translations

valley — see valley

Etymology 2

Origin obscure. Originally thieves' cant. Compare Dutch del (“trollop, floozie”). This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Noun

dell (plural dells)

1. (obsolete) A young woman; a wench.
   • 1621 August 13 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Ben Jonson, “The Masque of the Gypsies”, in Q. Horatius Flaccus: His Art of Poetry. […], London: […] J[ohn] Okes, for John Benson […], published 1640, →OCLC:

     Sweet doxies and dells

Derived terms

• arch dell
• wapping dell

Albanian

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Albanian *daislā, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰiH-slo (compare Latin fīlum, Lithuanian gýsla, Serbo-Croatian žȉla).

Noun

dell m (plural dej, definite delli, definite plural dejtë)

1. (anatomy) tendon
2. sinew

Declension

Declension of dell

	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	dell	delli	dej	dejtë
accusative		dellin
dative	delli	dellit	dejve	dejve
ablative			dejsh

Further reading

• “dell”, in FGJSH: Fjalor i gjuhës shqipe [Dictionary of the Albanian language] (in Albanian), 2006
• FGJSSH: Fjalor i gjuhës së sotme shqipe [Dictionary of the modern Albanian language]‎^[2], 1980
• Newmark, L. (1999) “dell”, in Oxford Albanian-English Dictionary‎^[3]

Maltese

Root
d-l-l
2 terms

Etymology

From Arabic ظِلّ (ẓill).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɛll/

Noun

dell m (plural dellijiet or dliel)

1. shade, shadow

Manx

Verb

dell (verbal noun dellal)

1. to negotiate, deal, trade, traffic

Mutation

Mutation of dell

radical	lenition	eclipsis
dell	ghell	nell

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Manx.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Middle English

Noun

dell

1. Alternative form of delle

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *dalljā, from Proto-Germanic *daljō (“a hollow”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dell/, [deɫ]

Noun

dell n

1. dell, vale

Descendants

• English: dell

References

• Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “dell”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[4], 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Vietnamese

Etymology

From the company name Dell, which has the similar pronunciation.

Pronunciation

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔɗɛw˧˦]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔɗɛw˨˩˦]
• (Saigon) IPA^(key): [ʔɗɛw˦˥]
• Phonetic spelling: đéo

Adverb

dell

1. (Internet slang) Alternative spelling of đéo.

Yola

Preposition

dell

1. Alternative form of del
   • 1867, OBSERVATIONS BY THE EDITOR, page 17:

     dell, for till;

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 17