swale

Meanings

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 created to carry water during rainstorms or snow melts; a drainage ditch.
4. Bioswale, a shallow trough dug into the land on contour (horizontally with no slope), whose purpose is to allow water time to percolate into the soil.
5. A shallow, usually grassy depression sloping downward from a plains upland meadow or level vegetated ridgetop.

1. A gutter in a candle.

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

1. A river, a tributary of the Ure in North Yorkshire, England.
2. A strait between the Isle of Sheppey and the Kentish mainland; in full, The Swale.
3. A local government district with borough status in Kent, England, created in 1974 with its headquarters in Sittingbourne and named after the channel.

Etymology

Possibly from Middle English swale (“a shady place, a shadow”), perhaps of North Germanic origin; akin to Old Norse svalr (“cool, fresh”), Icelandic svalir (“a balcony running along a wall”).