Sc. Also 7 strathe, straith. [a. Gael. srath = Ir. srath, sratha, W. ystrad.] A wide valley; a tract of level or low-lying land traversed by a river and bounded by hills or high ground.
1540. Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. (1883), 464. Terras de Auchnahay Auchalane, Dugerre, Kinloch, Auchranich, cum lie Strath, cum le Clasche et le Claschebrek.
1639. Sir R. Gordon, Geneal. Hist. Earld. Sutherld. (1813), 4. The valies which doe ly upon the banks of these rivers and inlets of water, as they doe ascend from the sea to the mountanes, ar called Strathes.
1721. Ramsay, Poet’s Wish, i. Those fair straths that water’d are With Tay and Tweed’s smooth streams.
1750. Collins, Ode Superstit. Highlands, iv. When, o’er the wat’ry strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop.
1753. Stewart’s Trial, 203. The deponent answered, that he had seen no person from the strath (or vale) of Appin.
1814. Scott, Wav., xiii. A ridge of distant and blue hills, which formed the southern boundary of the strath, or valley.
1873. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, xii. 154. The river Clyde … flows towards the north-west in a valley that gradually expands to a broad open strath.
† b. loosely. A stretch of flat land by the waterside. Obs.
1699. G. Turnbull, Diary, in Scot. Hist. Soc. Misc. (1893), I. 383. The place is pretty pleasant, close by Forth watarside, att the foot of Craigmor, betwixt which and the watar there is a strath very proper for walking.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1818), I. 290. A strath is a flat space of arable land lying along the side or sides of some capital river between the water and the feet of the hills.
