A dale is an open

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams ove ...

. ''Dale'' is a synonym of the word ''

''. The name is used when describing the

physical geography Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, ...

of an area. It is used most frequently in the

Lowlands of Scotland The Lowlands ( sco, Lallans or ; gd, a' Ghalldachd, , place of the foreigners, ) is a cultural and historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Lowlands and the Highlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowl ...

and in the North of England; the term "

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of Man, pa ...

" commonly refers to the

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...

s or

hill A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit. Terminology The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally considered to be not a ...

s that flank the dale.

Etymology

The word ''dale'' comes from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

word ''dæl'', from which the word " dell" is also derived. It is also related to

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

word ''dalr'' (and the modern Icelandic word ''dalur''), which may perhaps have influenced its survival in northern England. The Germanic origin is assumed to be *''dala-''. ''Dal-'' in various combinations is common in placenames in Norway. Modern English valley and French vallée are presumably not related to dale. A distant relative of ''dale'' is currency unit

dollar Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, ...

, stemming from German ''thaler'' or ''daler'', short for joachimsthaler coins manufactured in the town of Joachimsthal in Bohemia.Falk, Hjalmar (1991). ''Etymologisk ordbog over det norske og det danske sprog.'' Oslo: Bjørn Ringstrøms antikvariat. . The word is perhaps related to Welsh ''dol'' (meadow, pasture, valley), Russian ''dol'' (valley, reverse side) and Serbian/Croatian/Bulgarian/Russian ''dolina'' (basin, '' doline'' is a geological term for certain surface depressions in karst areas). There is semantic equivalency to many words and phrases, suggesting a common

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

affinity. Vale and

thalweg In geography and fluvial geomorphology, a thalweg or talweg () is the line of lowest elevation within a valley or watercourse. Under international law, a thalweg is the middle of the primary navigable channel of a waterway that defines the boun ...

are also related.

Examples

The following are several examples of major dales that have the name dale. The river name is usually appended with "-dale". There are also many smaller dales; this is not an exhaustive list (see

dale (place name element) A dale is a valley. It was commonly used in northern England and Scotland to denote an open valley as a dale, contrasted with a gill or narrow valley. List of places Places where dale is part of the name, but not the entire common name: Unite ...

for more). *

Airedale Airedale is a geographic area in Yorkshire, England, corresponding to the river valley or dale of the River Aire. The valley stretches from the river's origin in Aire Head Springs, Malham which is in the Yorkshire Dales, down past Skipton on ...

(Yorkshire) * Annandale (Dumfries & Galloway) * Calderdale (Yorkshire) *

Clydesdale Clydesdale is an archaic name for Lanarkshire, a traditional county in Scotland. The name may also refer to: Sports * Clydesdale F.C., a former football club in Glasgow * Clydesdale RFC, Glasgow, a former rugby union club * Clydesdale RFC, South ...

(Lanarkshire) *

Coquetdale The River Coquet runs through the county of Northumberland, England, discharging into the North Sea on the east coast at Amble. It rises in the Cheviot Hills on the border between England and Scotland, and follows a winding course across the l ...

(Northumberland) * Eskdale (Cumbria) * Eskdale (Dumfries & Galloway) * Eskdale (Yorkshire) *

Lauderdale Lauderdale is the valley of the Leader Water (a tributary of the Tweed) in the Scottish Borders. It contains the town of Lauder, as well as Earlston. The valley is traversed from end to end by the A68 trunk road, which runs from Darlington to ...

(Scottish Borders) * Lonsdale (or Lunesdale, valley of the

Lune Lune may refer to: Rivers *River Lune, in Lancashire and Cumbria, England *River Lune, Durham, in County Durham, England *Lune (Weser), a 43 km-long tributary of the Weser in Germany * Lune River (Tasmania), in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia P ...

, Lancashire-Cumbria) *

Nithsdale Nithsdale (''Srath Nid'' in Scottish Gaelic), also known as Strathnith, Stranith or Stranit, is the strath or dale of the River Nith in southern Scotland. Nithsdale was one of the medieval provinces of Scotland. The provinces gradually lost the ...

(Dumfries & Galloway) *

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

(Greater Manchester) *

Rosendale Village Rosendale is a hamlet with a population of approximately 1,350 people located in the Town of Rosendale in Ulster County, New York, United States. It was also a census-designated place known as Rosendale Village until 2010, when the U.S. Census B ...

(New York) *

Teesdale Teesdale is a dale, or valley, in Northern England. The dale is in the River Tees’s drainage basin, most water flows stem from or converge into said river, including the Skerne and Leven. Upper Teesdale, more commonly just Teesdale, falls b ...

(Durham) *

Tweeddale Tweeddale (Scottish Gaelic: ''Srath Thuaidh/Tuaidhdail'') is a committee area and lieutenancy area in the Scottish Borders council area in south-eastern Scotland. It had also been a province in the Middle Ages. From 1975 to 1996 it was a local ...

(Scottish Borders) *

Tynedale __NOTOC__ Tynedale is an area and former local government district in south-west Northumberland, England. The district had a resident population of 58,808 according to the 2001 Census. Its main towns were Hexham, Haltwhistle and Prudhoe. Th ...

(Northumberland) *

Weardale Weardale is a dale, or valley, on the east side of the Pennines in County Durham, England. Large parts of Weardale fall within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – the second-largest AONB in England and Wales. Th ...

(Durham) *

Wensleydale Wensleydale is the dale or upper valley of the River Ure on the east side of the Pennines, one of the Yorkshire Dales in North Yorkshire, England. It is one of only a few Yorkshire Dales not currently named after its principal river, but th ...

(or Yoredale, valley of the Ure, Yorkshire) *

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...

(

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inha ...

)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dale (Origin) Landforms Bodies of water Slope landforms Valleys