Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dry measure formerly used in some parts of France.
  • noun An obsolete form of cress.
  • noun In Scotland, a stretch of fertile alluvial land along the side of a stream; the low-lying part of a valley that is watered by a river, as distinguished from the higher grounds: as, the carse of Gowrie; the carse of Stirling. Carses are now regarded by geologists as raised beaches or terraces.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Scot. Low, fertile land; a river valley.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Scotland Low, fertile land; a river valley.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Of Celtic origin; compare Welsh cars bog, fen, carsen reed, Armoric kars, korsen, bog plant, reed.

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Examples

  • Hence every early community stands, to start with, near its own cultivable territory, usually a broad river-valley, an alluvial plain, a 'carse' or lowland, for uplands as yet were incapable of tillage by the primitive agriculture of those early epochs.

    Science in Arcady Grant Allen 1873

  • What was the special cause of the fen itself? why did not the great lowland become a fertile 'carse' of firm alluvial soil, like that of

    Prose Idylls, New and Old Charles Kingsley 1847

  • May lighthouse, where the Firth expands into the German Ocean; and away to the west, over all the carse of Stirling, you can see the first snows upon Ben Ledi.

    Edinburgh Picturesque Notes 2005

  • Four miles west of the town the fertile limestone _carse_ swells into the shady hills, clad largely with pine, that form the long glacis of the Alleghanies.

    Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875 Various

  • Benchonzie, the limit on the north, where the highest elevation is reached at 3048 feet, and the wood-crowned Turleum, 1291 feet high, where "wind and water sheers," the southern boundary, down to the well-cultivated and nearly level carse, which lies all the way between

    Chronicles of Strathearn John Hunter 1883

  • But the Earn slips between this seeming obstacle and the spurs of the Ochils, making such haste as it can through carse-like land to join the lordly Tay hard by Abernethy -- the ancient capital of the Southern Picts -- the centre of missionary enterprise, when darkness was thick upon the land after Ninian had died at Whithorn, on the Solway, and before Columba had set foot upon

    Chronicles of Strathearn John Hunter 1883

  • After which the Doctor sat down -- there was some difficulty in getting the family to sit in his presence -- and held a thorough review of the family history for the last year, dwelling upon the prospects of Charlie, for whom the Doctor had got a situation, and Jean, the married daughter, whose husband might one day have a farm with four pair of horses in the carse of Gowrie.

    Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Ian Maclaren 1878

  • The standard of liberty had been raised by him on the carse of Gowrie, and he carried it in his victorious arm from east to west, from the most northern point of Sutherland to the walls of Stirling; but there, the garrison which the treason of the late regent had admitted into that citadel gave a momentary check to his career.

    The Scottish Chiefs 1875

  • He and Lord March came upon the carse at the time I went thither to meet my gallant countrymen; and these two noblemen, though so lately the friends of Edward, united with the rest in proclaiming me regent.

    The Scottish Chiefs 1875

  • We were within the regions watered by the Nile, and the harvests resembled those of the carse of Gowrie.

    Round the World Andrew Carnegie 1877

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