pale

English Online Dictionary. What means pale‎? What does pale mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: pāl, IPA^(key): /peɪl/
• Rhymes: -eɪl
• Homophone: pail

Etymology 1

From Middle English pale, from Old French pale, from Latin pallidus (“pale, pallid”), from palleō (“I am pale; I grow pale; I fade”), from Proto-Indo-European *pelito-, from *pelH- (“gray”). Doublet of pallid. Displaced native Old English blāc.

Adjective

pale (comparative paler, superlative palest)

1. Light in color.
2. (of human skin) Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.).
3. Feeble, faint.

Synonyms

• (human skin): See also Thesaurus:pallid

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pale (third-person singular simple present pales, present participle paling, simple past and past participle paled)

1. (intransitive) To turn pale; to lose colour.
2. (intransitive) To become insignificant.
   • 12 July 2012, Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift

     The matter of whether the world needs a fourth Ice Age movie pales beside the question of why there were three before it, but Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that’s already been settled.

3. (transitive) To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.

Derived terms

• pale in comparison

Translations

Noun

pale

1. (obsolete) Paleness; pallor.

Etymology 2

From Middle English pale, pal, borrowed from Old French pal, from Latin pālus (“stake, prop”). English inherited the word pole (or, rather Old English pāl) from a much older Proto-Germanic borrowing of the same Latin word.

Doublet of peel and pole.

Noun

pale (plural pales)

1. A wooden stake; a picket.
   • 1707, John Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry, London: H. Mortlock & J. Robinson, 2nd edition, 1708, Chapter 1, pp. 11-12,^[3]

     […] if you deſign it a Fence to keep in Deer, at every eight or ten Foot diſtance, ſet a Poſt with a Mortice in it to ſtand a little ſloping over the ſide of the Bank about two Foot high; and into the Mortices put a Rail […] and no Deer will go over it, nor can they creep through it, as they do often, when a Pale tumbles down.
2. (archaic) A fence made from wooden stake; palisade.
3. (by extension) Limits, bounds (especially before of).
   • 1645, John Milton, Il Penseroso, in The Poetical Works of Milton, volume II, Edinburgh: Sands, Murray, and Cochran, published 1755, p. 151, lines 155–160:^[5]

     But let my due feet never fail, / To walk the ſtudious cloyſters pale, / And love the high embowed roof, / With antic pillars maſſy proof, / And ſtoried windows richly dight, / Caſting a dim religious light.
5. (heraldry) A vertical band down the middle of a shield.

   Hypernym: ordinary

   Coordinate terms: pallet, endorse, cottise

6. (archaic) A territory or defensive area within a specific boundary or under a given jurisdiction.
   1. (historical) The parts of Ireland under English jurisdiction.
   2. (historical) The territory around Calais under English control (from the 14th to 16th centuries).
   3. (historical) A portion of Russia in which Jews were permitted to live (the Pale of Settlement).
7. (archaic) The jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) of an authority.
8. A cheese scoop.

Derived terms

• beyond the pale
• Pale of Settlement
• within the pale

Translations

Verb

pale (third-person singular simple present pales, present participle paling, simple past and past participle paled)

1. To enclose with pales, or as if with pales; to encircle or encompass; to fence off.

Related terms

• impale
• palisade
• pallescent

References

Anagrams

• Alep, LEAP, Lape, Leap, Peal, e-pal, leap, peal, pela, plea

Afrikaans

Noun

pale

1. plural of paal

Estonian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *palgëh.

Noun

pale (genitive pale, partitive palge or pale)

1. cheek

Declension

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Occitan pala (or some western Oïl language), from Latin pāla (“shovel, spade”). Doublet of pelle.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pal/
• Homophone: pâle (chiefly France)

Noun

pale f (plural pales)

1. blade (of a propeller etc)
2. vane (of a windmill etc)

Further reading

• “pale”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• Alep, lape, lapé, pela

Haitian Creole

Etymology

From French parler (“talk, speak”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa.le/

Verb

pale

1. to talk, to speak

Hawaiian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.le/, [ˈpɐ.le]

Etymology 1

From Proto-Oceanic *pale₂ (cognate with Maori pare (“headdband, wreath”), Samoan pale and Tongan pale (both “wreath”))

Noun

pale

1. headdress
2. cover
3. pad, lining

Derived terms

• pāpale

References

Etymology 2

From Proto-Oceanic *pale₁ (cognate with Maori pare)

Verb

pale

1. to ward off
2. to protect

Derived terms

• palekana

References

Ingrian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *palgëh. Cognates include Finnish palje and Estonian pale.

Pronunciation

• (Ala-Laukaa) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑle/, [ˈpɑɫe̞]
• (Soikkola) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑle/, [ˈpɑɫe̞]
• Rhymes: -ɑle
• Hyphenation: pa‧le

Noun

pale

1. padding at the bottom of a horse's stirrup

Declension

References

• Ruben E. Nirvi (1971) Inkeroismurteiden Sanakirja, Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, page 378

Italian

Noun

pale f

1. plural of pala

Anagrams

• alpe, pela

Jakaltek

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish padre (“father”).

Noun

pale

1. priest

References

• Church, Clarence, Church, Katherine (1955) Vocabulario castellano-jacalteco, jacalteco-castellano‎^[7] (in Spanish), Guatemala C. A.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, page 17; 39

Latin

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Ancient Greek πάλη (pálē).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈpa.leː/, [ˈpäɫ̪eː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpa.le/, [ˈpäːle]

Noun

palē f (genitive palēs); first declension

1. a wrestling

Declension

First-declension noun (Greek-type).

Etymology 2

Noun

pāle

1. vocative singular of pālus

References

• “pale”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• pale in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pale”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “pale”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly

Lindu

Noun

pale

1. (anatomy) hand

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpalɛ/, [ˈpalə]

Participle

pale

1. third-person plural present of paliś

Norman

Etymology

From Old French pale, from Latin pallidus (“pale, pallid”).

Adjective

pale m or f

1. (Jersey) pale

Synonyms

• bliême

Northern Kurdish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pɑːˈlɛ/

Noun

pale ?

1. worker

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

pale n (definite singular paleet, indefinite plural pale or paleer, definite plural palea or paleene)

1. alternative spelling of palé

Norwegian Nynorsk

Noun

pale n (definite singular paleet, indefinite plural pale, definite plural palea)

1. alternative spelling of palé

Old French

Alternative forms

• pasle
• paule

Etymology

From Latin pallidus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.lə/

Adjective

pale m (oblique and nominative feminine singular pale)

1. pale, whitish or having little color

Descendants

• English: pale
• French: pâle
• Norman: pale (Jersey)

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.lɛ/
• Rhymes: -alɛ
• Syllabification: pa‧le
• Homophone: palę

Noun

pale m

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of pal

Noun

pale m

1. locative/vocative singular of pał

Noun

pale f

1. dative/locative singular of pała

Further reading

• pale in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Serbo-Croatian

Verb

pale (Cyrillic spelling пале)

1. third-person plural present of paliti

Participle

pale (Cyrillic spelling пале)

1. feminine plural active past participle of pȁsti

Swahili

Pronunciation

Adjective

pale

1. Pa class inflected form of -le.