▪ I. † dalle1 Obs. rare—1.
[app. an infantile word. Cf. daddle.]
The hand.
| c 1460 Towneley Myst. (Surtees) 118 Haylle! put furthe thy dalle, I bryng the bot a balle. |
▪ II. ‖ dalle2
(dal)
[Fr., in both senses.
It is probable that the two senses are really distinct words; in sense 2, the F. word is the same as dale3; in sense 1 Hatzfeld suggests connexion with Ger. diele, board, deal.]
1. A flat slab of stone, marble, or terra cotta, used for flooring; spec. an ornamental or coloured slab for pavements in churches, etc.
| 1855 Ecclesiologist XVI. 200 The choir, the chapels..were paved with these dalles. |
2. pl. The name given (originally by French employés of the Hudson's Bay Company) in the Western U.S. to rapids where the rivers are compressed into long narrow trough-like channels.
| 1884 Harper's Mag. Feb. 364/1 The Columbia River is there..compressed into ‘dalles’, or long, narrow, and broken troughs. 1890 M. Townsend U.S. 137 The Dalles of the Columbia, Oregon; the Dalles of the Wisconsin, Minnesota. |
Hence ˈdallage [Fr.], flooring with dalles.
| 1856 Ecclesiologist XVII. 57 In the dallage the treatment is archaic. |