Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A low tract of land, especially when moist or marshy.
- noun A long, narrow, usually shallow trough between ridges on a beach, running parallel to the coastline.
- noun A shallow troughlike depression that carries water mainly during rainstorms or snow melts.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Bleak; windy.
- noun A shade, or shady spot.
- noun A low place; a slight depression in a region in general nearly level, especially one of the lower tracts of what is called in the western United States “rolling prairie.”
- To melt and run down, as from heat; show the effects of great heat, whether by melting or by burning slowly.
- To burn, whether by singeing or by causing to melt or to run down; especially, to dress, as an animal killed for food, by singeing off the hair.
- noun A gutter in a candle.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Prov. Eng. & Local, U.S. A valley or low place; a tract of low, and usually wet, land; a moor; a fen.
- verb To melt and waste away; to singe. See
sweal , v. - noun Prov. Eng. A gutter in a candle.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A low
tract ofmoist ormarshy land. - noun A long narrow and shallow
trough between ridges on abeach , running parallel to thecoastline . - noun A shallow troughlike
depression that's created to carry water during rainstorms or snow melts; a drainageditch . - noun A shallow, usually grassy depression sloping downward from a plains upland meadow or level vegetated
ridgetop . - noun A shallow trough dug into the land on
contour (horizontally with no slope). Its purpose being to allow water time to percolate into the soil. - noun UK, dialect A
gutter in acandle .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a low area (especially a marshy area between ridges)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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a hill in the pasture, and I went to the top of this and saw the colt at the far side of the pasture in what we call the swale -- low, wet ground, where weeds abound.
Reveries of a Schoolmaster Francis B. Pearson
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Heathercrest Park boasts a mature, mostly oak forest connected to the Mimico Creek watershed, and a small "swale" - a low marshy strip - that feeds into Mimico Creek - both of intrinsic interest to TRCA.
INSIDETORONTO - Home 2010
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Beyond the swale was a narrow depression that might have been a stream or runoff channel in wetter years, and that channel led in a circling way around the west side of the semiplateau on which the mine complex stood, getting closer to the walls as it meandered south.
The Chaos Balance Modesitt, L. E. 1997
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The first thing he saw as he crossed the swale was the big bays in the yard.
Freckles 1904
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The first thing he saw as he crossed the swale was the big bays in the yard.
Freckles Gene Stratton-Porter 1893
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North, tumbling and rolling toward the Yellowstone in alternate "swale" and ridge, the treeless, upland prairie stretches to the horizon.
Custer's Last Battle 1890
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Down in the "swale," the wooden barracks, stables, quarters, and storehouses are all one tint of economical brown, brightened only by the hues of the flag that hangs high over the scene.
Marion's Faith. Charles King 1888
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From a point far down the "swale," from behind the low bank of the stream bed, three rifle shots rang out on the crisp morning air.
A Daughter of the Sioux A Tale of the Indian frontier Charles King 1888
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It is situated in a low marshy 'swale' to the right of the Sweetwater river, and about forty miles from the South Pass.
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But if you look to your Johnson, you will find, to your better satisfaction, that the name means "bird of porticos," or porches, from the Gothic "swale;"
Love's Meinie Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds John Ruskin 1859
knitandpurl commented on the word swale
"In this treeless and littoral terrain, the waters beside it did not suggest to me the Savannah River, but Jerris's concentration was on the swales, hollows, and longitudinal mounds of the fairways."
"Linksland and Bottle" by John McPhee, in The New Yorker, September 6, 2010, p 48
September 8, 2010
vendingmachine commented on the word swale
n. A valley or low place; a tract of low, and usually wet, land; a moor; a fen.
v. To melt and waste away; to singe. See sweal.
August 2, 2015