swale

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
There is 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.

View all »
Definitions (13)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A low tract of land, especially when moist or marshy.
  2. noun A long, narrow, usually shallow trough between ridges on a beach, running parallel to the coastline.
  3. noun A shallow troughlike depression that carries water mainly during rainstorms or snow melts.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • I landed on the front-left corner of the 22,000-square-foot green and had to putt through a gully so deep it couldn't be called a swale.
  • Right now the swale is filled with snow, but you can see the dogwood shrubs glowing bright red against the white snow. —  News & Features from Minnesota Public Radio
  • She glanced swiftly over her shoulder and when she returned her eyes to the front one of the riders was disappearing over the rim of the swale, and the other was struggling to his feet. —  Prairie Flowers
  • It appeared to come from a swale, or depression among some small, rounded knolls Sounds like a cattle stampede," remarked Bud, urging his pony forward. —  The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians or, Trailing the Yaquis
  • This ridge crossed the swale, or valley, and divided what lay beyond from the view of the six little Bunkers. —  Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 286 times.

1 person has marked this word as a favorite.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Perhaps from Middle English, shade, perhaps of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse svalr, cool.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English swale, shade; perhaps connected with swale or with sweal.
  2. from Icelandic svalr = Swedish Danish sval, cool; cf. Icelandic sval, a cool breeze, svalar, n. plural, a kind of balcony running along a wall, = Swedish Danish svale, a gallery.
  3. from Middle English swalen; a secondary form of swelen: see sweal.
  4. from swale, v.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/sweɪl/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a year.

Recently looked up

taurine · specific · waterworks · irrational · divine

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

these grunts every eight hours · haul it off to our darkest dungeon · send for a doctor · forget what witticism you were originally going to insert here because you've just banged your knee on your desk · the rest will come naturally