local. Also 6 Sc. swaill, swayll, 9 swail, Sc. swyle. [Origin unknown. Prob. conveyed to America from the eastern counties, where it is still in use.] A hollow, low place; esp. U.S., a moist or marshy depression in a tract of land, esp. in the midst of rolling prairie.
1584. (Dec. 23) Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. (1888), 239/2. Keipand the stripe quhill it enter in Beildeis swaill, and keipand and ascendand upwith the said swaill quhill it cum to the littill stane calsay.
1615. Extracts Aberd. Reg. (1848), II. 324. Hauldand vp the said burne to the roche swaill of Kynmvndie. Ibid. Quhair thair is ane great mother swayll on the south syde of the said Blackburne. Ibid., 326. Thairfra doun the said northsyd of the great swayll.
1667. Dedham Rec., IV. 135 (Thornton). He may cutt in a place called the Swale, adjoyning to the Ceader Swampe.
1805. T. Bigelow, Jrnl. Tour Niagra Falls (1876), 37 (Thornton). A swale or valley affords … copious springs of water.
1809. Kendall, Trav., III. lxxvii. 193. The swales, or rich hollows, lying behind the uplands, by which latter they are separated from the meadows.
1827. J. F. Cooper, Prairie, v. Fire low, boys—level into the swales, for the red skins are settling to the very earth!
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., III. ii. (1849), 86. Stumps and cradle heaps, mud-holes and miry swails, succeeded one another.
1866. Gregor, Banffsh. Gloss., Swyle, a bog.
1874. Trippe, in Coues, Birds N. W., 223. An open park-like tract of rolling, grassy prairie, interspersed with groves of pines, low hills, and wet, marshy swales.
attrib. 1830. Galt, Lawrie T., VIII. v. (1849), 371. These swale-runnels are often deceptive.
1905. Blackw. Mag., Dec., 771/1. That course led him through the swale bottoms.
1911. Montreal Daily Star, 14 March, 10/1. Their crop is swale hay; in other words swamp grass, which no self-respecting cow would eat if it could get anything better.
