dell
/dɛl/noun
dell is spelled D-E-L-L: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, dell means “A small, deep, and wooded valley or sunken area of ground, especially in the form of a natural hollow” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of dell is dells.
How many letters and syllables are in dell?
| Letters | 4: D-E-L-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.7 times per million words; the 11,685th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is dell?
Dell appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce dell?
- /dɛl/
Dell has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-dell.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of dell
- dells plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does dell mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A small, deep, and wooded valley or sunken area of ground, especially in the form of a natural hollow.
To this day they dwell In a lonely dell.
- 2
obsoleteA young woman; a wench.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Dell in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense sunken area of ground:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does dell come from?
From Middle English delle, del, from Old English dell (“small dale”), from Proto-West Germanic *dalljā, from Proto-Germanic *daljō. Cognate to Proto-Slavic *dolъ (“below, down; valley, pit”), Welsh dôl (“meadow, dale”) and English dale.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).