Definition of "swale" [swale]

• A low tract of land, especially when moist or marshy. (noun)
• A long, narrow, usually shallow trough between ridges on a beach, running parallel to the coastline. (noun)
• A shallow troughlike depression that carries water mainly during rainstorms or snow melts. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "a hill in the pasture, and I went to the top of this and saw the colt at the far side of the pasture in what we call the swale -- low, wet ground, where weeds abound."
• "Heathercrest Park boasts a mature, mostly oak forest connected to the Mimico Creek watershed, and a small "swale" - a low marshy strip - that feeds into Mimico Creek - both of intrinsic interest to TRCA."
• "Beyond the swale was a narrow depression that might have been a stream or runoff channel in wetter years, and that channel led in a circling way around the west side of the semiplateau on which the mine complex stood, getting closer to the walls as it meandered south."