swale

• IPA^(key): /sweɪl/
• Rhymes: -eɪl

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

swale (plural swales)

1. A low tract of moist or marshy land.
2. A long narrow and shallow trough between ridges on a beach, running parallel to the coastline.
3. A shallow troughlike depression that's created to carry water during rainstorms or snow melts; a drainage ditch.
4. A shallow, usually grassy depression sloping downward from a plains upland meadow or level vegetated ridgetop.
   • 1912, Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage, Chapter 6

     Jane climbed a few more paces behind him and then peeped over the ridge. Just beyond began a shallow swale that deepened and widened into a valley, and then swung to the left.

5. 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.
   • 2009, Toby Hemenway, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition, Chelsea Green Publishing (→ISBN), page 101:

     The stored water creates an underground reservoir that aids plant growth for tens of feet below the swale. Swales also prevent gullies from forming by intercepting rainwater, slowing it, spreading it, and storing it in the soil.

See sweal.

swale (plural swales)

1. (Britain, dialectal) A gutter in a candle.

swale (third-person singular simple present swales, present participle swaling, simple past and past participle swaled)

1. Alternative form of sweal (melt and waste away, or singe)

• Wales, alews, lawes, sweal, wales, weals

swale

1. Alternative form of whale