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''vale'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''vale'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250818153140-00-⌔

vale - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

vale (plural vales)

  • (chiefly poetic) A valley.
    • ✤ Synonyms: dale; see also Thesaurus: valley
    • ✤ Antonym: hill
    • ✤ In those fair vales, by nature form’d to please,/Where Guadalquiver serpentines with ease,1
    • ✤ “Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said,/“Where I may mourn and pray.2
    • ✤ Beyond this vale of tears/There is a life above,3
    • ✤ The short sweet turfage of the hills renders “Portland mutton” almost as famous as Welsh, while the luxuriance of the vales lends itself to the breeding of fine cattle.4
    • ✤ But now a cry went up, passing up the wind from the south from vale to vale, and Elves and Men lifted their voices in wonder and joy.5

Interjection

vale

  • (usually seen in obituaries) Farewell.
    • ✤ * Vale, Sarah Smith*

Etymology 1

From Middle English vale, from Old French val (“valley”), from Latin vallis, valles. Displaced native Old English dell.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: vāl, IPA: /veɪl/, [veɪɫ]
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -eɪl
  • Homophones: veil, vail, Vail

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin valē, singular imperative of valeō (“be well”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: väʹlā, IPA: /ˈvɑːleɪ/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1767, Walter Harte, “The Vision of Death”, in The Works of the English Poets, volume 16, published 1810, page 370: ↩

  2. 1832, Alfred Tennyson, The Palace of Art: ↩

  3. a. 1854, James Montgomery, “Hymn 214”, in The Issues of Life and Death: ↩

  4. 1910, Arthur L. Salmon, Dorset, page 6: ↩

  5. 1977, J. R. R. Tolkien, “Of the Fifth Battle”, in The Silmarillion: ↩

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Secondary

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