How to Use swale in a Sentence

swale

noun
  • The thing with the swales is, there aren’t a lot of eyes on it.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Sep. 2019
  • Which side is getting a sidewalk, which side is getting a swale?
    — Ted Scouten, CBS News, 7 Jan. 2026
  • Look for the golden hue of the tamarack on one of the swales (low points) late in the fall.
    — Chelsey Lewis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9 Oct. 2017
  • Add a dry stream bed, swale or just some depressions to your garden.
    — Nan Sterman, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 Jan. 2023
  • Add a drainage ditch or swale to absorb water during storms.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 18 May 2026
  • The watery enclave is a wildlife magnet at the edge of a sunny green swale.
    — Mare Czinar, The Arizona Republic, 19 July 2024
  • Jaime spent time watching how the water flowed down to the street to figure out how to lay out the swale.
    — Caron Golden, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Apr. 2025
  • The lip of the canyon gave way to a gently dropping swale of lush grass, aspens, and large oak trees.
    — Frank C. Hibben, Outdoor Life, 13 Feb. 2025
  • Sirens blare, parents record cellphone videos of their young ones and people stand along the swales and wave.
    — Nick Sortal, sun-sentinel.com, 12 Dec. 2019
  • Streets lined with homes look like ghost towns, while parking lots and swales are packed with tailgate chairs, tents and cots.
    — Patricia Mazzei, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2020
  • The swale is designed to slow and capture runoff; it is lined with rocks to prevent erosion.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 July 2019
  • Color remains in the way that light strikes slopes, turning low-lying wet swales heather and hills rose.
    — Juliana Hanle, Scientific American, 18 Nov. 2019
  • From a swale short of the green, Haas chipped weakly to 15 feet and missed the putt to stay 1 down.
    — latimes.com, 26 Mar. 2017
  • The land here was laser-leveled, and workers carved a swale to give juvenile salmon a way in and out when the plain floods.
    — Ian James, Los Angeles Times, 20 Feb. 2024
  • Keep yards well-drained by clearing gutters and creating swales or rain gardens.
    — Nishaa Sharma, The Spruce, 26 Jan. 2026
  • The swales are shallow depressions tucked among sand dunes and fed by rain and underground water.
    — Washington Post, 3 Aug. 2019
  • To handle torrential rains, direct water away from your garden with dry creek beds and swales.
    — Leanne Potts, Better Homes & Gardens, 22 Sep. 2025
  • The swales are shallow depressions tucked among sand dunes and fed by underground aquifers and rain water.
    — Fox News, 2 Aug. 2019
  • Kirpalani’s swale is landscaped with plants that are adaptable to either wet or dry conditions.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 July 2019
  • Deer grass hovers around the swale and California poppies dot the ground.
    — Caron Golden, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Dec. 2025
  • The developers also agreed to build a drainage swale to divert runoff on the south side of the property.
    — Stacy Ryburn, Arkansas Online, 14 Feb. 2023
  • But Bolton fears relocating the aged tree could kill it and the other large, old tree that already sits in the swale.
    — Miami Herald, 9 Aug. 2025
  • On the fourth hole, Day’s approach shot missed the green and trundled down a swale about 15 yards from the putting surface.
    — Bill Pennington, New York Times, 15 June 2017
  • The pickup turned left sharply and crossed over the eastbound lanes and into the grass swale and eventually into the canal.
    — David J. Neal and Carli Teproff, miamiherald, 4 May 2017
  • Hoadley says that this grass will thrive in a wet area in your landscape or anywhere there is seasonal moisture, such as rain gardens and swales.
    — Lauren David, Southern Living, 26 Apr. 2026
  • Hoadley says that this grass will thrive in a wet area in your landscape or anywhere there is seasonal moisture, such as rain gardens and swales.
    — Lauren David, Southern Living, 24 Apr. 2026
  • Hoadley says that this grass will thrive in a wet area in your landscape or anywhere there is seasonal moisture, such as rain gardens and swales.
    — Lauren David, Southern Living, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Some parking lots now have the swales in place, but four lots still need to have the work completed, according to Thompson.
    — Hal Bernton, The Seattle Times, 1 June 2018
  • Sometimes, in the early morning hours, the crater emulates its origins when the summer sun coaxes a smoke-like mist from the dewy swale.
    — Mare Czinar, azcentral, 27 June 2019
  • The swales will collect stormwater flowing down the hill and prevent soil and other pollutants from reaching the river.
    — Don Behm, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7 May 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'swale.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: