vale

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the vale of years

The last or declining years of one's age or career. Astride his motorcycle with thick chestnut hair and a deep, booming voice, my grandfather looks very little like a man who has slipped into the vale of years.
See also: of, vale, year

vale of tears

Life or the world at large regarded as a source of sorrow, strife, or tragedy. I'm only glad that she is at peace and can leave this vale of tears behind. If you convince yourself that life is nothing but a vale of tears, you will end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
See also: of, tear, vale
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

(this) vale of tears

Fig. the earth; mortal life on earth. (A vale is a literary word for valley.) When it comes time for me to leave this vale of tears, I hope I can leave some worthwhile memories behind. Uncle Fred left this vale of tears early this morning.
See also: of, tear, vale
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

vale of tears

the world regarded as a scene of trouble or sorrow. literary
This phrase dates from the mid 16th century; earlier variants included vale of trouble , vale of weeping , and vale of woe .
1997 Shetland Times Then by God's grace we'll meet again, Beyond this vale of tears.
See also: of, tear, vale

the vale of years

the declining years of a person's life; old age.
This expression comes from Shakespeare 's Othello: ‘for I am declin'd into the vale of yeares’.
See also: of, vale, year
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
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References in classic literature ?
But we must get down into the Vale again, and so away by the Great Western Railway to town, for time and the printer's devil press, and it is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad road.
"I'm the Poet of White Horse Vale, sir, With liberal notions under my cap." - Ballad
However, it is time for us to get from the general to the particular; so, leaving the great army of Browns, who are scattered over the whole empire on which the sun never sets, and whose general diffusion I take to be the chief cause of that empire's stability; let us at once fix our attention upon the small nest of Browns in which our hero was hatched, and which dwelt in that portion of the royal county of Berks which is called the Vale of White Horse.
This is the day of large views, and glorious humanity, and all that; but I wish back-sword play hadn't gone out in the Vale of White Horse, and that that confounded Great Western hadn't carried away Alfred's Hill to make an embankment.
But to return to the said Vale of White Horse, the country in which the first scenes of this true and interesting story are laid.
Stiggins--says, "We are born in a vale, and must take the consequences of being found in such a situation." These consequences I, for one, am ready to encounter.
It is altogether a place that you won't forget, a place to open a man's soul, and make him prophesy, as he looks down on that great Vale spread out as the garden of the Lord before him, and wave on wave of the mysterious downs behind, and to the right and left the chalk hills running away into the distance, along which he can trace for miles the old Roman road, "the Ridgeway" ("the Rudge," as the country folk call it), keeping straight along the highest back of the hills--such a place as Balak brought Balaam to, and told him to prophesy against the people in the valley beneath.
"The heathen had beforehand seized the higher ground," as old Asser says, having wasted everything behind them from London, and being just ready to burst down on the fair Vale, Alfred's own birthplace and heritage.
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This is the latest book by the Vales, written in New Zealand, where they moved in 1996.
THE NEW AUTONOMOUS HOUSE
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