Etymology 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.
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.1794, William Blake, The Little Girl Found, lines 49-50
In dells and dales, conceal'd from human sight.1722, Thomas Tickell, Kensington Gardens:
1 more example
Already the shrill lark is out of sight, Flooding with waves of song this silent dell, ---Ah! there is something more in that bird's flight Than could be tested in a crucible!--- But the air freshens, let us go, why soon The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June![...]a. 1881, Oscar Wilde, 'The Garden of Eros', in Poems:
Sweet doxies and dells1621 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:
A Dell is a yonge wenche, able for generation, and not yet knowen or broken by the vpright man.1896, John Stephen Farmer, editor, Musa Pedestris: Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes (1536-1896), page -11: