dale

plural dales

1. UKslightly dated outside Yorkshire etc.A valley, often in an otherwise hilly area.

   Over hill, over dale / As we hit the dusty trail, / And those caissons go rolling along.

   1908, Edmund Louis Gruber, The Caissons Go Rolling Along

   3 more examples

   And we will all the pleasures prove / That hills and valleys, dales and fields, / Woods, or steepy mountain yields

   c. 1587, Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

   Five miles meandering with a mazy motion, / Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, / Then reached the caverns measureless to man, / And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: [...]

   1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Kubla Khan: Or A Vision in a Dream”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: […] John Murray, […], by William Bulmer and Co. […], published 1816, →OCLC, page 57

   The country about Nuncombe Putney is perhaps as pretty as any in England. It is beyond the river Teign, between that and Dartmoor, and is so lovely in all its variations of rivers, rivulets, broken ground, hills and dales, old broken, battered, time-worn timber, green knolls, rich pastures, and heathy common, that the wonder is that English lovers of scenery know so little of it.

   1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “The Clock House at Nuncombe Putney”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 113

   Synonyms: dell, dells, vale

2. The sunken or grooved portion of the surface of a vinyl record.

   Antonyms: hill

plural dales

1. archaicA trough or spout to carry off water, as from a pump.

   The pump-dale scupper is that to which the dale leads, that conveys the water from the pumps to the side on the lower deck of large ships.

   1853, John Fincham, An Outline of Ship Building in Four Parts, page 40

alternative Dayle

1. A surname from Middle English for someone living in a dale.
2. A unisex given name transferred from the surname.
   1. A male given name transferred from the surname.
   2. A female given name transferred from the surname.
3. A hamlet in Ainstable parish, Eden district, Cumbria, England (OS grid ref NY5444).
4. A village and community in west Pembrokeshire, Wales (OS grid ref SM8005).
5. A village in Fjaler, Vestland, Norway.
6. A village in Vaksdal, Vestland, Norway.
7. A village in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland.
8. A woreda in Ethiopia.
9. A community in Port Hope, Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada.
10. A number of places in the United States:
    1. An unincorporated community in Hamilton County, Illinois.
    2. A township in McLean County, Illinois.
    3. A town in Spencer County, Indiana.
    4. An unincorporated community in Boone County, Indiana.
    5. A township in O'Brien County, Iowa.
    6. A township in Kingman County, Kansas.
    7. A former community in Tobacco Township, Gladwin County, Michigan.
    8. A ghost town in Clay County, Minnesota.
    9. A township in Cottonwood County, Minnesota.
    10. A township in Atchison County, Missouri.
    11. A ghost town in Custer County, Nebraska.
    12. A hamlet in Wyoming County, New York.
    13. An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma.
    14. An unincorporated community in Grant County, Oregon.
    15. A borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania.
    16. An unincorporated community in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
    17. An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Beaufort County, South Carolina.
    18. An unincorporated community in Caldwell County, Texas.
    19. An unincorporated community in Tyler County, West Virginia.
    20. A town and census-designated place therein, in Outagamie County, Wisconsin.