swale

Meanings

Plural: swales

Noun

• a low area (especially a marshy area between ridges)
• A low tract of moist or marshy land.
• A long narrow and shallow trough between ridges on a beach, running parallel to the coastline.
• A shallow troughlike depression created to carry water during rainstorms or snow melts; a drainage ditch.
• 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.
• A shallow, usually grassy depression sloping downward from a plains upland meadow or level vegetated ridgetop.
• A gutter in a candle.

Verb

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