Dale (landform)

A dale is a valley, especially an open, gently-sloping ground between low hills with a stream flowing through it. It is used most frequently in Yorkshire and the Southern Uplands of Scotland; the term "fell" commonly refers to mountains or hills that flank a dale. As with many other words, dale was preserved by Viking influence in Northern England.
It appears in various contexts, such as “up hill and down dale”, “over every hill and dale”, and “up all hills, down all dales”.

Etymology

The word dale comes from the Old English word dæl, from which the word "dell" also derived. It is related to Old Norse word dalr, which may 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 claimed to be related to dale. A distant relative of dale is currency unit dollar, stemming from German thaler or daler, short for Joachimsthaler coins manufactured in the town of Joachimsthal in Bohemia.
The word is perhaps related to Welsh dol, Russian dol and Serbian/Croatian/Bulgarian/Russian dolina. The uses are semantic equivalents to many words and phrases, suggesting a common Indo-European affinity. Vale and thalweg are also related.

Word/phrase	Language
dal	Afrikaans/Dutch
dal	Chechen
Tal, Delle	German
dal	Norwegian/Swedish/Danish
даліна	Belarusian
долина	Serbian/Croatian/Bulgarian/Russian/Ukrainian
vale, dolină	Romanian
dolec, dolek	Slovenian
údolí, důl	Czech
dolina	Polish
údolie, dolina	Slovak
دره	Persian
دۆڵ	Kurdish

Uses

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.

The name Wuppertal is similar in form.