valley, noun

Forms:
Also valey.
Origin:
South African Dutch, DutchShow more Calque formed on South African Dutch vlei, adaptation of Dutch vallei a flat area through which a river flows.
obs. except in historical contexts
a. vlei sense 1.
1795 C.R. Hopson tr. of C.P. Thunberg’s Trav. II. p.xiiA Valley is nothing more than a rivulet, which is sometimes overgrown with rushes, and is broad in some places, and narrow in others.
1795 C.R. Hopson tr. of C.P. Thunberg’s Trav. II. 2The whole country was covered with sand and downs, and abounded in swamps (valley), which having been filled with water during the winter, now began to produce fine pasturage for the cattle.
1801 J. Barrow Trav. I. 69A lake called the Vogel Valley or the Bird Lake: The word valley, in the colony, implies either a lake or a swamp.
1822 W.J. Burchell Trav. I. 519This word Valley is a Dutch word of most extensive use in the Cape Colony, and can seldom be translated by the English word Valley...It should, therefore, be considered, not as an English, but as a colonial, term, its proper pronunciation being as if written faly, with the a sounded very faintly and indistinctly, and a strong accent on the y.
1822 W.J. Burchell Trav. I. 538We..soon came to a large and very long valley, or lake, in a part of the road where, in September, no traces of any thing of the kind were to be seen.
a1827 D. Carmichael in W.J. Hooker Botanical Misc. (1831) II. 52This valley, or rather plain, is a tract of marshy ground, three miles in extent, overgrown with reeds, rushes, and other aquatic plants.
[1834 T. Pringle Afr. Sketches 272As they could not conveniently get within shot of the game without crossing part of the valei or marsh,..they agreed to leave their steeds in charge of their Hottentots.]
1905 P.D. Hahn in Flint & Gilchrist Science in S. Afr. 417The wine grown on hills is of a much superior quality to the product obtained from vineyards in the valleys — ‘vleys,’ where the wine thrives in a rich alluvial soil.
1994 M. Roberts tr. of J.A. Wahlberg’s Trav. Jrnls 1838–56 9In a little Valey were a great crowd of Totanana and a Fringa [two species of wader].
b. comb.
valley-ground, vlei ground (see vlei sense 2).
1812 A. Plumptre tr. of H. Lichtenstein’s Trav. in Sn Afr. I.Very few horned cattle are kept, from the want of what is called valley-ground; by this is meant a moist soil, composed of clay and sand.
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valley-ground

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vadoek, nounn.Van, nounn.
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