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• dale
  dale

  noun

  a valley, especially a broad valley.
• Dale
  Dale

  noun

  Sir Henry Hallett 1875–1968, English physiologist: Nobel Prize in Medicine 1936.

dale

¹ American  

[deyl] / deɪl /

noun

dales plural

1. a valley, especially a broad valley.

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Dale ² American  

[deyl] / deɪl /

noun

1. Sir Henry Hallett 1875–1968, English physiologist: Nobel Prize in Medicine 1936.

2. Sir Thomas, died 1619, British colonial administrator in America: governor of Virginia 1614–16.

3. a male or female given name.

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Dale ¹ British  

/ deɪl /

noun

1. Sir Henry Hallet. 1875–1968, English physiologist: shared a Nobel prize for physiology or medicine in 1936 with Otto Loewi for their work on the chemical transmission of nerve impulses

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dale ² British  

/ deɪl /

noun

1. an open valley, usually in an area of low hills

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Dale Scientific  

/ dāl /

1. British physiologist who discovered acetylcholine and, with Otto Loewi, investigated the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. For this work they shared the 1936 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• dales
  plural

Etymology

Origin of dale

before 900; Middle English dal, Old English dæl; cognate with German Tal, Old Norse dalr, Gothic dals

Explanation

A dale is a valley, a wide, open area that stretches between hills. Some dales have rivers or streams flowing through them, while others are covered in grasses or other plants. When a geologist describes something as a dale or a valley, it is typically a low area that's longer than it is wide, and bordered on at least two sides by hills or mountains. Dales with rivers are often called "vales," while a very small dale is sometimes called a "hollow," pronounced "holler" in rural Appalachia. Dale comes from the Old English word for "valley," dæl.

Example Sentences

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 2, 2023

When I ask Sarah Close, who lives in a farmhouse in the dale, how fast the download speed is, she just laughs.

From BBC • Dec. 8, 2021

Having gone uphill, they are heading down dale at velocity.

From The Guardian • Jul. 11, 2021

There’s a scene in “A Walk in the Woods,” a low-impact amble through hill, dale and cinematic nostalgia, when our two crusty trekkers face down a pair of bears.

From New York Times • Sep. 1, 2015

Going westward a mile or so they came to a dale.

From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien