Plural of “valley”

The plural of valley is valleys.

Why

"Valley" comes from Old French "valee," from Latin "vallis," describing a stretch of low land between hills or mountains. English borrowed the word in the medieval period, and since a vowel, e, sits directly before the final y, it simply adds -s rather than converting to the -ies ending used by consonant-plus-y nouns like "city."

"Valley" is a useful word for illustrating the vowel-versus-consonant distinction precisely because it looks, at a glance, similar in shape to consonant-plus-y words like "city" — both end in "-ey" or "-y" sounds — but the letter directly before the final y is the vowel e, which is exactly why "valleys" never becomes "vallies." The word entered Middle English through Anglo-Norman French following the Norman Conquest, part of the large wave of French geographic and administrative vocabulary that entered English during that period, alongside words like "mountain" and "river" that similarly displaced or supplemented older native English terms for landscape features.

Usage note

"Valleys" is standard across every context, from geography and geology to the many figurative regional names built on the word, such as Silicon Valley or the Rust Belt's industrial valleys. Figurative uses describing emotional or economic downturns ("the valleys of a difficult year," contrasted with its "peaks") also pluralize normally, treating "valley" as a metaphorical low point rather than a literal geographic feature.

The word's Latin root "vallis" passed into most Romance languages in recognizably similar forms, French "vallée," Italian "valle," Spanish "valle," a reminder of how widely shared this particular geographic vocabulary is across languages descended from Latin. "Valley" also appears in a wide range of internationally recognized place names used as informal shorthand for entire industries or regions, Silicon Valley for technology, Death Valley for the extreme desert landform, and Napa Valley for wine production, each treating the singular "Valley" as part of a fixed proper name that doesn't pluralize even when referring to the broader industry it represents.

Common real mistakes

There's little error risk here given how clearly the vowel-plus-y rule applies; occasional confusion arises only from visually mistaking "valley" for a consonant-plus-y word by analogy with similar-looking nouns, though this rarely produces an actual misspelling in practice. Writers sometimes also confuse "valley" with the geologically distinct "canyon" or "gorge," which describe narrower, steeper-walled formations; the terms overlap in casual use but aren't strictly interchangeable in formal geographic writing.

The wider pattern

"Valley" rounds out the vowel-plus-y group alongside "monkey" and "key," all sharing the same simple add-s rule, and together this whole cluster of words demonstrates that the deciding factor for -y plurals is always the single letter immediately before the y, not the word's length, origin, or overall appearance.

Examples

• The river carved several valleys through the mountain range.
• Wine grapes thrive in the region's fertile valleys.
• Hikers explored two remote valleys over the long weekend.
• Fog often settles into the valleys overnight.
• Farmers have cultivated these valleys for generations.
• The train route winds through a series of narrow valleys.
• Several glacial valleys were shaped during the last ice age.
• Tech companies clustered in valleys known for their innovation.
• The map marked three valleys prone to seasonal flooding.
• Sheep grazed peacefully across the surrounding valleys.
• Vineyards spread across the sunlit valleys below the ridge.
• The survey mapped every valley within the national park's boundaries.
• The two valleys are separated by a narrow, forested ridge.
• Morning mist rolled through the valleys before the sun burned it off.
• The two neighboring valleys share the same underground water table.
• Migrating birds rest in these valleys before continuing south.
• The orchard sits at the mouth of one of the widest valleys.
• The narrow valley flooded after the spring thaw.