dalk

From Middle English dalke, dalk, from Old English dalc (“clasp, buckle, brooch, bracelet”), from Proto-Germanic *dalkaz (“clasp, pin”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰelg- (“to stick; needle, pin”). Cognate with Icelandic dálkur (“cloak-pin”), Latin falx (“scythe”).

dalk (plural dalks)

1. A pin; brooch; clasp

From Middle English dalke; perhaps a diminutive of dale, dell. In that case from Old English *daluc, from Proto-Germanic *dalukaz.

• delk

dalk (plural dalks)

1. (now rare) A hollow or depression.
   • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin 2011, p. 120:

     On a sunny September morning, with the trees still green, but the asters and fleabanes already taking over in ditch and dalk, Van set out for Ladoga, N.A.

From Afrikaans dadelik (“immediately”), from Dutch dadelijk. The sense shift from “immediately” to “possibly” is similar to English dialectal drekly from directly.

dalk

1. perchance, perhaps, possibly

From Old English dalc, from Proto-Germanic *dalkaz.

dalk

1. Alternative form of dalke (“brooch”)

From Old English *daluc.

dalk

1. Alternative form of dalke (“depression”)