Meaning & use
vale
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountableliterary
A valley, especially a wide, green and peaceful one; the word is mostly found in poetry and in the names of places.
Grammar: Often appears in place names: the Vale of York.
Patterns
- the vale of something
- a vale between hills
A river wound lazily through the green vale below the village.
The poet described a quiet vale full of wild flowers.
Sheep grazed in the vale beneath the old castle.
Word forms
| plural | vales |
|---|
Common combinations
- a peaceful vale
- They built a cottage in a peaceful vale far from any town.
- hill and vale
- The road ran over hill and vale for miles.
- the Vale of Evesham
- The Vale of Evesham is famous for its orchards.
- a fertile vale
- Farmers have worked the fertile vale for centuries.
- vale of tears
- The old hymn calls this world a vale of tears.
Synonyms and how they differ
- valley
- Valley is the normal everyday word, while vale sounds poetic or belongs to a place name.
- dale
- Dale is used for valleys in northern England and in poems, and it feels more regional than the more literary vale.
- glen
- Glen is a Scottish or Irish word for a narrow, steep valley, whereas a vale is usually wide and gentle.
- dell
- Dell means a small, wooded hollow, so it is much smaller than a vale.
Opposites
Word family
- valley noun
- the ordinary word for low land between hills
- intervale noun
- low land between hills or along a river, mainly used in parts of North America
Commonly confused: vale or veil?
vale vs veil
Veil sounds exactly like vale, but a veil is a thin piece of cloth that covers the face or head.
Practice
Which word sounds the same as vale but means a piece of thin cloth worn over the face?
Choose one answer.
A veil is the cloth covering and is pronounced like vale. Veal is meat, and vial is a small bottle, so neither has the same sound.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “vale”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.