sweet gale

American  

noun

1. an aromatic shrub, Myrica gale, of marshes, having lance-shaped leaves and yellowish fruit.

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sweet gale British  

noun

1. Often shortened to: gale.  Also called: bog myrtle.  a shrub, Myrica gale, of northern swamp regions, having yellow catkin-like flowers and aromatic leaves: family Myricaceae

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Etymology

Origin of sweet gale

First recorded in 1630–40

Example Sentences

The sweet gale next appears on its borders, and drift-wood, much of it rotten and comminuted, is thrown up on the exterior bank, together with some roots and stems of larger trees.

From The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 by Various

II Death, death is the gloomy shore Where we all sail— Soft, soft, thou gliding oar; Blow soft, sweet gale!

From Last Days of Pompeii by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

Erasmus is, much more than Aretino or Castiglione, the representative of the spirit of his age, one over whose Christian sentiment the sweet gale of Antiquity had passed.

From Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Huizinga, Johan

Footnote 7: Ale brewed of the herb called sweet gale, or Dutch myrtle, instead of hops.--Tr.

From The Childhood of King Erik Menved An Historical Romance by Ingemann, Bernhard Severin

The sweet gale, or Dutch myrtle, grows in moorland fens.

From Two Decades A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York by Graham, Frances W.