Glen
A narrow valley, often steep-sided and wooded, sometimes following a stream or river. The standard word for the small valleys of Ulster, north Donegal, and Scotland. Found in many place-names: Glenarm, Glendalough, Glencolumbkille.
Etymology
From Irish 'gleann' (= valley) and Scots Gaelic 'gleann' (the same word). The cognate has identical sense in both Goidelic languages, marking the deep Celtic linguistic substrate of both Ulster and Highland Scotland. The English form 'glen' is the standard anglicisation, in continuous use since the medieval period in both Irish and Scottish English.
In a sentence
"There's a path that runs the length of the glen - takes about an hour from end to end."
Historical notes
Glen is one of the most-borrowed Celtic landscape words in English. Where the lowland English landscape gave 'valley' and 'dale', the upland Celtic landscape gave 'glen' (Gaelic) and 'cwm' (Welsh). The word appears in hundreds of Irish and Scottish place-names, and most carry their original Celtic meaning - Glendalough is 'the glen of the two lakes' (gleann dá loch), Glencolumbkille is 'the glen of Colm Cille'. Modern Hiberno-English uses 'glen' freely as a common noun as well as in place-names.
Sources
- Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Ó Dónaill), entry gleann. · dictionary
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry glen n. · dictionary