pale

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Light in color.

   • I have pale yellow wallpaper.
   • She had pale skin because she didn't get much sunlight.
   • She turned pale and screamed on seeing the spider in the toilet.
2. 2

   Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.).

   • His face turned pale after hearing about his mother's death.
   • Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.
3. 3

   Feeble, faint.

   • He is but a pale shadow of his former self.
   • The son's clumsy paintings are a pale imitation of his father's.
4. ›+ 13 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      To turn pale

      To turn pale; to lose colour.

   2. 5

      To become insignificant.

      • Its financing pales next to the tens of billions that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will have at its disposal, especially with the coming infusion of some $3 billion a year from Warren E. Buffett, the founder of Berkshire Hathaway.
   3. 6

      To make pale

      To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.

      • The Glow-worme ſhowes the Matine to be neere, / And gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire : / Adue, adue, Hamlet : remember me.
   4. 7

      Paleness

      Paleness; pallor.

      • The boare (quoth ſhe) whereat a ſuddain pale, / Like lawne being ſpred vpon the bluſhing roſe, / Vſurpes her cheeke, ſhe trembles at his tale, / And on his neck her yoaking armes ſhe throwes.
   5. 8

      A wooden stake

      A wooden stake; a picket.

      • Ceiling joists were sometimes grooved to receive riven staves or pales that secured mud-and-straw walling.
      • Pales (irregular, hand-riven, 1′′ × 4′′ boards) are inserted into grooves on both sides of the floor joists; on top of these, similar pales are laid at right angles; finally a plasterlike mixture is poured over and around the top pales,
   6. 9

      A fence made from wooden stake

      A fence made from wooden stake; palisade.

      • How are we park’d and bounded in a pale, / A little herd of England’s timorous deer, / Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
      • Fourthly, they ſhall not vpon any occaſion whatſoeuer breake downe any of our pales, or come into any of our Townes or forts by any other waies, iſſues or ports then ordinary […]
   7. 10

      Limits, bounds (especially before of).

      • 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.
      • The moſſy pales that ſkirt the orchard-green, / Here hid by ſhrub-vvood, there by glimpſes ſeen; […]
      • Men so situated, beyond the pale of the honor and the law, are not to be trusted.
   8. 11

      A vertical band down the middle of a shield.

   9. 12

      A territory or defensive area within a specific boundary or under a given jurisdiction.

   10. 13

       The jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) of an authority.

   11. 14

       A cheese scoop.

   12. 15

       To enclose with pales, or as if with pales

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

       • […] your iſle, which ſtands / As Neptunes Parke, ribb’d, and pal’d in / With Oakes vnſkaleable, and roaring Waters, / With Sands that will not bear your Enemies Boates, / But ſuck them vp to th’ Top-maſt.
   13. 16

       The part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late…

       The part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages.

The neighborhood