valley

plural valleys · obsolete plural vallies

1. An elongated depression cast between hills or mountains, often with a river flowing through it.

   The Indus River valley was the site of an ancient civilization.

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   [I]t sank down through the air and poured over the ground in a manner rather liquid than gaseous, abandoning the hills, and streaming into the valleys and ditches and water-courses even as I have heard the carbonic acid gas that pours from volcanic clefts is wont to do.

   1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 144

   The El Dorado-Searchlight area is geologically a north-south trending orogenous zone, paralleled on the east by the valley of the Colorado, and by an alluvial valley on the west.

   1968, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, volumes 11-14, page vi

   Most of the Himalayan rivers have been relatively untouched by dams near their sources. Now the two great Asian powers, India and China, are rushing to harness them as they cut through some of the world's deepest valleys.

   2013 August 16, John Vidal, “Dams endanger ecology of Himalayas”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 10, page 8

   Synonyms: dale, vale

2. An area which drains itself into a river.
3. Any structure resembling one, e.g. the interior angle formed by the intersection of two sloping roof planes.

present singular third person valleys · participle present valleying · participle past valleyed · past valleyed

1. intransitivepoeticrareTo form the shape of a valley.

   Over Govino Bay, looking up from the water’s edge, the landscape resembles nothing so much as the hills above Genova, valleying into the sea, […]

   1970, Charles Wright, The Grave of the Right Hand, Middletown, C.T.: Wesleyan University Press, →ISBN, page 25

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   These hues of red rose and green and pale green, ruffled and pouted in the billowy white of the dress ballooning and valleying softly, like a yacht before the sail bends low; […]

   1879, George Meredith, chapter XVIII, in The Egoist: A Comedy in Narrative. […], volume I, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], →OCLC, page 323

   There must be something atavistic in the male blood that makes it rush, relent, rush with the peaks and the valleys, the roundness of Lia's breasts valleying and peaking, the stretch of her neck, the swaying of her hips.

   2009, Gian Franco Romagnoli, The Bicycle Runner: A Memoir of Love, Loyalty, and the Italian Resistance, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Dunne Books, →ISBN, page 117

plural Valleys

1. countableA surname from landforms.

   Synonyms: Vallee

2. A placename:
   1. countableuncountableA community in Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada.
   2. countableuncountableA city in Chambers County, Alabama, United States, on the Georgia state line.
   3. countableuncountableA city in Nebraska, United States.
   4. countableuncountableA number of townships in the United States, listed under Valley Township.
   5. countableuncountableA village and community in Anglesey, Wales (OS grid ref SH2979).

1. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of the San Fernando Valley: a valley of southern California, United States.

   She's in school paying for tuition / Doing porn in the Valley

   2011, “Novacane”, in nostalgia,ULTRA, performed by Frank Ocean

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   The Valley is getting downright cosmopolitan, but it’s unlikely the region will ever completely morph into a hip haven.

   2006 July 16, Marc Weingarten, “The San Fernando Valley? Hip? Like, Totally!”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

2. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of Silicon Valley.

   Since the late 1950s, when perhaps six unions were active in the Valley, the trade associations and individual firms have made it one of their primary missions to destroy all vestiges of worker autonomy, the most visible manifestation of which is the union.

   2002, David Naguib Pellow, Lisa Sun-Hee Park, “Toward Environmental and Social Justice in Silicon Valley, USA, and Beyond”, in The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy, New York, N.Y.; London: New York University Press, →ISBN, page 212

   2 more examples

   The sunshine, the abundance of U.S. government research grants, the willingness of Stanford University to let its professors walk out the door with their inventions and start companies, the presence of a counterculture intent on arming the masses with new technology—all made the Valley the place to be for people with a knack for building new technology.

   1999, Michael Lewis, “The Accelerated Grimace”, in The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 38

   The company had merged with Sequoia [Capital]-backed X.com, and [Michael] Moritz had insisted on a grown-up CEO to run the combined company. The offer that came back from investors was a $200 million round at a $500 million pre-money valuation. Sounds rich, right? The PayPalers were insulted. It was the height of the bubble; they all thought PayPal was the next great Valley company and should be worth far more than that.

   2008, Sarah Lacy, “Sell Out”, in Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0, Gotham Books, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., →ISBN, page 237