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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To pierce with a sharp stake or point.
  2. v. To torture or kill by impaling.
  3. v. To render helpless as if by impaling.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To fix upon a stake; drive or thrust a sharpened stake through: an ancient and Oriental mode of capital punishment.
  2. Hence Figuratively, to render helpless as if pierced through or impaled: as, to impale a person upon his own argument or upon the horns of a dilemma.
  3. To surround or inclose with or as with stakes, posts, or palisades.
  4. In heraldry, to display side by side on one shield, separated palewise each from the other, as when the arms of husband and wife are represented together.
  5. Hence — To place side by side as of similar importance and signification.

Wiktionary

  1. v. to pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake.
  2. v. more generally, to pierce (something) with any long, pointed object.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake. See empale.
  2. v. To inclose, as with pales or stakes; to surround.
  3. v. To join, as two coats of arms on one shield, palewise; hence, to join in honorable mention.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. kill by piercing with a spear or sharp pole
  2. v. pierce with a sharp stake or point

Etymologies

  1. Medieval Latin impālāre : Latin in-, in; see in-2 + Latin pālus, stake; see pag- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

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‘impale’ has been looked up 1488 times, added to 17 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 10.