Home › Words › S › shilfshilfshilf means straw or reeds.EtymologyCompare German Schilf (“sedge”).nounstraw or reeds.e.g.“Five-and-twenty of them are tied together and laid at the depth of one fathom at most on sunk posts, as the sevrugas go to shallow places and among the shilf.” — 1800, William Tooke, View of the Russian Empire During the Reign of Catharine the Second, page 56:Coarse shale or slate fragments.e.g.“Below the statum of tin ground is a bed of stiff clay called shilf or shale.” — 1808, The Literary panorama - Volume 4, Issue 1808, page 547:Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).Words closest in meaningBy meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.reit 63% match — sedge; seaweed vs shilf →strawen 61% match — Made of straw. vs shilf →sheely 60% match — A shilfa, or chaffinch. vs shilf →rushen 58% match — Made of rushes (the plant). vs shilf →windling 58% match — A bundle of straw bound together. vs shilf →shiel 58% match — A shepherd's hut or shieling. vs shilf →hile 57% match — A bundle of sheaves of wheat (or similar crop) stacked vertically to dry; a stook. vs shilf →shieling 57% match — An area of summer pasture used for cattle, sheep etc. vs shilf →