pale

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: pāl, IPA^(key): /peɪl/

• Audio (US); [ˈpʰeəɫ]:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪl
• Homophone: pail

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

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.

   She turned pale and screamed on seeing the spider in the toilet.

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. […]”

   • 1917, Jack London, chapter XV, in Michael, Brother of Jerry:

     A rangy, gangly, Scandinavian youth of a sailor, droop-shouldered, six feet six and slender as a lath, with pallid eyes of palest blue and skin and hair attuned to the same colour scheme, joined Kwaque in his work.

   • 2013, Leslie Morgan Steiner, The Baby Chase:

     Three years later, the unwatered cactus was still about two feet tall, a dark green color. The watered cactus was a paler green, its trunk visibly swollen with moisture. It had grown to be over five feet tall.

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's death.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     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. 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.

   • 1991 February 11, Jeffery R. Nickel, “Going To The Chapel”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 29, page 8:

     Many in the gay community were quick to assure everyone that gay marriage was not on the horizon. One community leader even tried to stop the introduction of a "domestic partnership" bill—at best a pale substitute for marriage—claiming that it would have polarized our opposition.

• (human skin): See also Thesaurus:pallid

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

1. (intransitive) To turn pale; to lose colour.

   Synonym: blanch

   • 1856, Elizabeth Browning, Aurora Leigh, New York: C. S. Francis & Co., published 1857, page 282:

     But a man— / Note men !—they are but women after all, / As women are but Auroras !—there are men / Born tender, apt to pale at a trodden worm, / Who paint for pastime, in their favourite dream, / Spruce auto-vestments flowered with crocus-flames / There are, too, who believe in hell and lie : […]

2. (intransitive) To become insignificant.
   • 1959 May, “Talking of Trains: "Rail-rovers" again”, in Trains Illustrated, page 236:

     (Although the conditions are rather different, the generosity of the offer certainly pales by comparison with the "Eurailpass" now available to tourists from North and South America at $125 (£44 13s.), which allows two months' unlimited first class travel throughout the railway systems of thirteen countries—[...].)

   • 2006 September 14, Katie Hafner, “Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual”, in The New York Times‎^[2], archived from the original on 27 November 2022:

     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.

   • 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.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v], page 258, column 1, lines 89–91:

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

• pale in comparison/pale by comparison

pale

1. (obsolete) Paleness; pallor.
   • 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC, lines [589–592]:

     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.

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.

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.

   • 1997, Gabrielle M. Lanier, Bernard L. Herman, Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic, page 90:

     Ceiling joists were sometimes grooved to receive riven staves or pales that secured mud-and-straw walling.

   • 2015, Mark E. Reinberger, Elizabeth McLean, The Philadelphia Country House:

     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,

2. (archaic) A fence made from wooden stake; palisade.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:

     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!

   • 1615, Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia‎^[4], London: William Welby, page 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).
   • 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.

   • 1798, [Samuel Rogers], “An Epistle to a Friend”, in An Epistle to a Friend, with Other Poems. […], London: […] R. Noble, for T[homas] Cadell, Junior, and W[illiam] Davies, […], →OCLC, page 10, lines 19–20:

     The moſſy pales that ſkirt the orchard-green, / Here hid by ſhrub-vvood, there by glimpſes ſeen; […]

   • 1900, Jack London, The Son of the Wolf:The Wisdom of the Trail:

     Men so situated, beyond the pale of the honor and the law, are not to be trusted.

   • 1919, B. G. Jefferis, J. L. Nichols, Searchlights on Health:When and Whom to Marry:

     All things considered, we advise the male reader to keep his desires in check till he is at least twenty-five, and the female not to enter the pale of wedlock until she has attained the age of twenty.

5. (heraldry) A vertical band down the middle of a shield.

   Hypernym: ordinary

   Coordinate terms: pallet, endorse, cottise

   • 1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 479:

     The shield was silver, charged with a red cross voided (that is, with the centre cut out and only the edges left), between in chief (that is, above the horizontal limb of the cross) two black dragon's wings, and in base two red daggers, and in the centre of the cross a black winged helmet; on a red chief (a broad band across the top of the shield), a silver pale (a broad vertical band), and thereon eight black arrows crossed X-wise, four and four, and encircled with a black band, between on the dexter three bendlets (narrow bands slanting from dexter chief to sinister base) enhanced (that is, raised above the centre), and on the sinister a fleur-de-lis, all of gold.

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, published 2010, page 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, published 2012, page 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.

   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.^[1]

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

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.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     […] 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.

• impale
• palisade
• pallescent

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

pale

1. plural of paal

From Proto-Finnic *palgëh.

pale (genitive palge or pale, partitive palet)

1. cheek

Declension of pale (ÕS type 6/mõte, g-ø gradation)
		singular	plural
nominative		pale	palged
accusative	nom.
	gen.	palge
genitive			palete
partitive		palet	palgeid
illative		palgesse	paletesse palgeisse
inessive		palges	paletes palgeis
elative		palgest	paletest palgeist
allative		palgele	paletele palgeile
adessive		palgel	paletel palgeil
ablative		palgelt	paletelt palgeilt
translative		palgeks	paleteks palgeiks
terminative		palgeni	paleteni
essive		palgena	paletena
abessive		palgeta	paleteta
comitative		palgega	paletega

Declension of pale (ÕS type 16/pere, no gradation)
		singular	plural
nominative		pale	paled
accusative	nom.
	gen.	pale
genitive			palede
partitive		palet	palesid
illative		palle palesse	paledesse
inessive		pales	paledes
elative		palest	paledest
allative		palele	paledele
adessive		palel	paledel
ablative		palelt	paledelt
translative		paleks	paledeks
terminative		paleni	paledeni
essive		palena	paledena
abessive		paleta	paledeta
comitative		palega	paledega

From Middle French pale (14th c.), ultimately from Latin pāla (“shovel, spade”). Doublet of pelle, which is the regular French descendant. The form pale is either from a western dialect or from Old Occitan pala.

• IPA^(key): /pal/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Hérault)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Saint-Étienne)):

  (file)

• Homophones: pal, pales, pals (general), pâle, pâles (chiefly France)

pale f (plural pales)

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

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

• Alep, lape, lapé, pela

From French parler (“to talk, to speak”).

• IPA^(key): /pa.le/

• Audio:

  (file)

pale

1. to talk, to speak
   • 2019 March 19, “Rankont ann Itali ant Anvwaye Espesyal Etazini ak Larisi sou Kriz Venezuela a”, in Lavwadlamerik‎^[6], archived from the original on 28 December 2025:

     Anvwaye espesyal Etazini pou Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, ak vis-minis afè etranjè Larisi, Sergei Ryabkov, ap fè reyinyon nan vil Wòm ann Itali pou yo pale sou “sityasyon Venezuela kap agrave.”

     American Special Envoy for Venezuela Elliot Abrams and Russian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov are meeting in the city of Rome, Italy to talk about "the worsening situation in Venezuela."

• Targète, Jean; Urciolo, Raphael (1993), Haitian Creole-English Dictionary‎^[7], Dunwoody Press, →ISBN, page 142

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.le/, [ˈpɐ.le]

From Proto-Oceanic *pale₂ (cognate with Māori pare (“headdband, wreath”), Samoan pale and Tongan pale (both “wreath”))^[1][2]

pale

1. headdress
2. cover
3. pad, lining

• pāpale

From Proto-Oceanic *pale₁ (cognate with Māori pare)^[1][2]

pale

1. to ward off
2. to protect

• hoʻopale (causative)
• palekana

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

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

pale

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

Declension of pale (type 6/lähe, k- gradation)
	singular	plural
nominative	pale	palkeet
genitive	palkeen	palkein
partitive	paletta	palkeita
illative	palkeesse	palkeisse
inessive	palkees	palkeis
elative	palkeest	palkeist
allative	palkeelle	palkeille
adessive	palkeel	palkeil
ablative	palkeelt	palkeilt
translative	palkeeks	palkeiks
essive	palkeenna, palkeen	palkeinna, palkein
exessive1)	palkeent	palkeint
1) obsolete *) the accusative corresponds with either the genitive (sg) or nominative (pl) **) the comitative is formed by adding the suffix -ka? or -kä? to the genitive.

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

pale f

1. plural of pala

• alpe, pela

Borrowed from Spanish padre (“father”).

pale

1. priest

• Church, Clarence; Church, Katherine (1955), Vocabulario castellano-jacalteco, jacalteco-castellano‎^[8] (in Spanish), Guatemala C. A.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, page 17; 39

Borrowed from Ancient Greek πάλη (pálē).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈpa.ɫeː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpaː.le]

palē f (genitive palēs); first declension

1. a wrestling

First-declension noun (feminine, Greek-type, nominative singular in -ē).

pāle

1. vocative singular of pālus

• “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

pale

1. (anatomy) hand

• IPA^(key): /ˈpalɛ/, [ˈpalə]

pale

1. third-person plural present of paliś

• IPA^(key): /ˈpale/, [ˈpʰa.lɛ]
• Hyphenation: pa‧le

pale (Lontara spelling ᨄᨒᨙ)

1. limp; weak (in feeling); lethargic

   Na mapale ngasemmo anne pattintinganna moncongku

   And over my whole body I am limp, even to the pores of my skin.

2. graceful; elegant

   Pale buakkang matanna

   Gracefully raising the eyes.

   Pale gioʼ

   Graceful in her movements.

3. friendly; beautifully formed

   Bibereʼ pale appaʼngara ri sawinna

   Lips beautifully formed, friendly when urging his crew.

pale (Lontara spelling ᨄᨒᨙ)

1. a specific star, specifically Venus as the evening star

   Pale mannuntunga banngi

   The evening star that shines all night through.

2. (figurative) a beautiful girl

• wari

• Cense, A. A. (1979), Makassaars-Nederlands woordenboek [Makasar-Dutch dictionary], 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN

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

pale m or f

1. (Jersey) pale

• bliême

Borrowed from Assyrian Neo-Aramaic ܦܵܥܠܵܐ (pāˁlā)

• IPA^(key): /pɑːˈlɛ/

pale ?

1. worker

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

1. alternative spelling of palé

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

1. alternative spelling of palé

• pasle
• paule

From Latin pallidus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.lə/

pale m (oblique and nominative feminine singular pale)

1. pale, whitish or having little color

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.lɛ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -alɛ
• Syllabification: pa‧le
• Homophone: palę

pale m

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of pal

pale m

1. locative/vocative singular of pał

pale f

1. dative/locative singular of pała

• “pale”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[9] (in Polish)

pale

1. inflection of pală:
   1. indefinite nominative/accusative/genitive/dative plural
   2. indefinite genitive/dative singular

pale (Cyrillic spelling пале)

1. third-person plural present of paliti

pale (Cyrillic spelling пале)

1. feminine plural active past participle of pȁsti

• Audio (Kenya):

  (file)

pale

1. pa class_(XVI) inflected form of -le