Meaning of coulee | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A stream, especially one in the western US or Canada, generally smaller than a bayou; it may (or may not) run dry in summer, may be sluggish, shallow, and wide (forming in effect a pond or slough), or may have cut a deep gulch or ravine.
2. A rural municipality in south-west Saskatchewan, Canada; in full, the Rural Municipality of Coulee No. 136.
3. A reach of water in a bayou that is like a slough but deeper.
4. An unincorporated community in Mountrail County, North Dakota, United States.
5. A lava flow (whether molten or solidified).

Equivalents

Examples

“[…] Mauvaise Coulee enters Devils Lake from the north, but it cannot be said to drain the lakes with which it is connected. It is itself a long-drawn-out slough or pool which is broader at those places where it spreads out into lakes. […] the head streams or coulees of the Park⟳, the Forest and the Turtle, have⟳ all cut⟳ deep channels down through the drift into the underlying shales. This is because of the fall⟳ from the top of the high plateau down to the low prairie. […] all the larger lakes upon this plateau have⟳ already been tapped by the head coulees of the streams named.”

“The small streams and coulees which flow⟳ into the Mississippi River in the area are firmly entrenched by the natural topography, and little lateral migration is possible.”

“We were in a coulee, which is like⟳ a slough but deeper and with slushier muds at the bottom.”

“The edge of a coulee, or stream of solidified lava, though ordinarily a very low escarpment, is exceptionally of such size as to deserve⟳ attention in the present⟳ connection.”

CEFR level