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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

elt.

To injure (anything) by rough handling; handle roughly.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb
  1. To injure (anything) by rough handling; handle roughly.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · transitive
    Du's eltin dat creature to death, boy!?
  2. To begrime; soil with mud; daub; smear.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · transitive
    Whin shü cam oot an fann me dere Wi peenie fairlins eltit.
    Mi böts ir a' eltit wi' glaar.
  3. To work persistently or laboriously; be occupied in working (e.g. in the earth, rake among dirt, etc.).

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · transitive
  4. To meddle; interfere.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · transitive
  5. To knead dough; stir dough previously kneaded to a proper consistency before baking.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · transitive
  6. To become soft; become moist, as damp earth.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · dialectal · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English elten (“to mold, knead, work”), from Old Norse elta (“to chase, hunt, knead”), from Proto-Germanic *alatjaną (“to drive, force, move”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elh₂- (“to drive, move, go”). Cognate with Danish ælte (“to knead”), Swedish älta (“to dwell upon, brood, stir, knead”), Norwegian elte (“to knead”), Norwegian elta (“to pursue, plod”), Icelandic elta (“to chase”).

noun
  1. Abbreviation of element.

    abbreviation · alt-of
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.