intervale

noun
New England

Origin:

Origin: Variant (influenced by vale¹)

Origin: of interval

.

Regional Note: Intervale is among the distinctive New England terms mapped by Hans Kurath in the Linguistic Atlas of New England in the 1940s. However, by the time the Dictionary of American Regional English surveyed the New England states 20 years later, only three speakers in 72 New England communities used the word intervale to indicate a “tract of low-lying land, especially along a river.” The word was common in New England at one time because so many settlements were made along the rivers, where the land was more fertile and the towns were accessible by water.