pale

Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to: navigation, search
See also Pale, pâle, and palę

Contents

English [edit]

Wikipedia-logo.png
 Pale on Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Pronunciation [edit]

Etymology 1 [edit]

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

Adjective [edit]

pale (comparative paler, superlative palest)

  1. Light in color.
    I have pale yellow wallpaper.
    She had pale skin because she didn't get much sunlight.
  2. (of human skin) Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.)
    His face turned pale after hearing about his mother' death.
Translations [edit]
light in color

Verb [edit]

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

  1. (intransitive) To turn pale; to lose colour.
    • Elizabeth Browning
      Apt to pale at a trodden worm.
  2. (intransitive) To become insignificant.
    2006 New York Times Its financing pales next to the tens of billions that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will have at its disposal, ...
    • 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.
Derived terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
to become pale

Noun [edit]

pale

  1. (obsolete) Paleness; pallor.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

Etymology 2 [edit]

From Middle English, from Latin pālus (“stake, prop”).

Noun [edit]

pale (plural pales)

  1. Wooden stake.
  2. (archaic) Fence made from wooden stake; palisade.
    • 1615, Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia, Richmond 1957, p. 13:
      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 [...].
  3. (by extension) Limits, bounds (especially before of).
  4. The bounds of morality, good behaviour or judgment in civilized company, in the phrase beyond the pale.
  5. (heraldry) A vertical band down the middle of a shield.
  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).
      • 2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate 2010, p. 402:
        He knows the fortifications – crumbling – and beyond the city walls the lands of the Pale, its woods, villages and marshes, its sluices, dykes and canals.
      • 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin 2012, p. 73:
        A low-lying, marshy enclave stretching eighteen miles along the coast and pushing some eight to ten miles inland, the Pale of Calais nestled between French Picardy to the west and, to the east, the imperial-dominated territories of Flanders.
  7. (archaic) The jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) of an authority.
Translations [edit]
wooden stake
fence made of wooden stakes
limits, bounds
bounds of morality
heraldry: vertical band
defensive area held in another country
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb [edit]

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.
    [Your isle, which stands] ribbed and paled in / With rocks unscalable and roaring waters. — Shakespeare.

Related terms [edit]

Statistics [edit]

Anagrams [edit]

Estonian [edit]

Noun [edit]

pale (??? please provide the genitive and partitive!)

  1. cheek

Declension [edit]

This Estonian noun needs an inflection-table template.

French [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Latin pāla (“shovel, spade”).

Noun [edit]

pale f (plural pales)

  1. blade

Anagrams [edit]

Haitian Creole [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From French parler (“talk, speak”)

Verb [edit]

pale

  1. to talk, to speak

Italian [edit]

Noun [edit]

pale

  1. Plural form of pala

Anagrams [edit]

Jèrriais [edit]

Etymology [edit]

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

Adjective [edit]

pale (epicene, plural pales)

  1. pale

Synonyms [edit]

Kurdish [edit]

Noun [edit]

pale gender unspecified

  1. worker

Latin [edit]

Noun [edit]

pāle

  1. vocative singular of pālus

Old French [edit]

Alternative forms [edit]

Etymology [edit]

Latin pallidus.

Pronunciation [edit]

  • IPA: /ˈpa.lə/

Adjective [edit]

pale m and f

  1. pale, whitish or having little color

Descendants [edit]

Swahili [edit]

Adverb [edit]

pale

  1. there
Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=pale&oldid=20575735"