Other forms: vales
A vale is a valley, in poetic use. A green vale, the vale below, this vale of tears.
Nobody says it in ordinary speech, but it survives in place names — the Vale of York, the Vale of Glamorgan — and in poetry, where it is chosen for sound as much as sense. This vale of tears is a fixed phrase for the world seen as a place of suffering, from a medieval Latin hymn. Note dale, which is the northern English word for the same thing and much more alive.
1nounvaleA valley, in poetic use.
“Mist lay over the peaceful vale as the sun rose above the hills.”
vale is a valley.
VALE → VALLEY, cut short
The old song calls it a vale and the map calls it a valley, and both mean the same green cut between two hills with a river down the middle of it.
hooks ontovalley
Old French val comes from Latin vallis, a valley. It displaced the native English dell in poetry, and valley is the same Latin word arriving in a longer form.
Latin
vallis, valles
Old French
val — valley
Middle English
vale
English, today
vale
From Middle English vale, from Old French val (“valley”), from Latin vallis, valles. Displaced native dell.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA