Glen
A
glen is a valley, typically one that is long, deep, and often glacially U-shaped, or one with a watercourse running through it. Whittow defines it as a
"Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is
"narrower than a strath." The word is Goidelic:
gleann in Scottish and Irish Gaelic,
glion in Manx. In Manx,
glan is also to be found meaning glen. It is cognate with Welsh
glyn. The word is sometimes found in tautological placenames where its meaning was opaque to a new linguistic community, an example perhaps being Glendale which is a combination of Norse "dale" and Gaelic "glen". As the name of a river, it is thought to derive from the Irish word
glan meaning clean, or the Welsh word
gleindid meaning purity. An example is the Glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland where nine glens radiate out from the Antrim plateau to the sea along the coast between Ballycastle and Larne.