up hill and down dale
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
traveling or moving through varied terrain or circumstances
Literally: over hills and through valleys
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The walk was a bit up hill and down dale and it rather tired me out.
She was cursing poor old Reverend Marr up hill and down dale but I don't reckon even grandma wanted him dead,’ said the lad with relish.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “up hill and down dale” mean?
traveling or moving through varied terrain or circumstances Literally: over hills and through valleys
Is “up hill and down dale” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.