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vales

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Valleys. This is a literary or poetic plural that is less common in modern English.

Detailed Definition
A vale is a valley, often imagined as a pleasant, sheltered one in poetry. Blake uses the plural form to widen the scene beyond the lamb to the surrounding landscape. The word is still understandable from context, but it is more literary than everyday.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Making all the vales rejoice!” (Blake, “Spring”); Sheep moved like clouds through the vales; “Echoing green” and sheltered vales create pastoral joy; A vale is a valley, especially a fertile or beautiful one; In elegy, “vale” can contrast quiet lowlands with lofty, difficult peaks
Additional Notes
"Vales" is a literary plural for valleys, and the form in the quoted line is less familiar than the everyday word "valleys."; Found in the poem, The Lamb by William Blake
Other Meanings of “vales”
Also Known As
valleys dales glens hollows
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