Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Whitish in complexion; pallid.
  • adjective Of a low intensity of color; light.
  • adjective Having high lightness and low saturation.
  • adjective Of a low intensity of light; dim or faint.
  • adjective Feeble; weak.
  • intransitive verb To cause to turn pale.
  • intransitive verb To become pale; blanch.
  • intransitive verb To decrease in relative importance.
  • noun A stake or pointed stick; a picket.
  • noun A fence enclosing an area.
  • noun The area enclosed by a fence or boundary.
  • noun A region or district lying within an imposed boundary or constituting a separate jurisdiction.
  • noun The medieval dominions of the English in Ireland. Used with the.
  • noun Heraldry A wide vertical band in the center of an escutcheon.
  • transitive verb To enclose with pales; fence in.
  • idiom (beyond the pale) Irrevocably unacceptable or unreasonable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To grow or turn pale; hence, to become insignificant.
  • To make pale; diminish the brightness of; dim.
  • Of a whitish or wan appearance; lacking color; not ruddy or fresh in color or complexion; pallid; wan: as, a pale face.
  • Lacking chromatic intensity, approximating to white or whitish blue or whitish violet: thus, moonlight and lilacs are pale. A red, yellow, or green may be called pale if very near white.
  • Of light color as compared with others of the same sort: applied especially to certain liquors: as, pale brandy; pale sherry; pale ale.
  • Synonyms Pale, Pallid, Wan, colorless. The first three words stand in the order of strength; the next degree beyond wan is ghastly, which means deathly pale. (See ghastly.) To be pale may be natural, as the pale blue of the violet; the American Indian calls the white man paleface; to be pallid or wan is a sign of ill health. Paleness may be a brief or momentary state; pallid and wan express that which is not so quickly recovered from. Pale has a wide range of application; pallid and wan apply chiefly to the human countenance, though with possible figurative extension.
  • noun Paleness; pallor.
  • noun A stake; a pointed piece of wood driven into the ground, as in a fence; a picket.
  • noun A fence or paling; that which incloses, fences in, or confines; hence, barrier, limits, bounds.
  • noun An inclosed place; an inclosure; the inclosure of a castle.
  • noun A district or region within determined bounds; hence, limits; bounds; sphere; scope.
  • noun In heraldry, a broad perpendicular stripe in an escutcheon, equally distant from the two edges and usually occupying one third of it: the first and simplest kind of ordinary. When not charged, it is often represented as containing only one fifth of the field.
  • noun A perpendicular stripe on cloth.
  • noun In ship-building, one of the interior shores for steadying the timbers of a ship in construction.
  • To inclose with pales; fence.
  • To inclose; encircle; encompass.
  • noun A bakers' shovel or peel.
  • noun An instrument for trying the quality of cheese; a cheese-scoop.
  • noun Chaff.
  • noun In botany, same as palea .
  • To beat or thrash (barley), so as to detach it from the awns or chaff. See pale, n., 1.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To inclose with pales, or as with pales; to encircle; to encompass; to fence off.
  • transitive verb To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.
  • noun rare Paleness; pallor.
  • intransitive verb To turn pale; to lose color or luster.
  • noun A pointed stake or slat, either driven into the ground, or fastened to a rail at the top and bottom, for fencing or inclosing; a picket.
  • noun That which incloses or fences in; a boundary; a limit; a fence; a palisade.
  • noun A space or field having bounds or limits; a limited region or place; an inclosure; -- often used figuratively.
  • noun A region within specified bounds, whether or not enclosed or demarcated.
  • noun A stripe or band, as on a garment.
  • noun (Her.) One of the greater ordinaries, being a broad perpendicular stripe in an escutcheon, equally distant from the two edges, and occupying one third of it.
  • noun A cheese scoop.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin pallidus, from pallēre, to be pale; see pel- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French pal, from Latin pālus; see pag- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

  • The difference cannot be that our language contains a single word (˜man™) for a rational animal, but no single word for a pale man, for Aristotle has already conceded (1029b28) that we might very well have had a single term (he suggests himation, literally ˜cloak™) for a pale man, but that would still not make the formula ˜pale man™ a definition nor pale man an essence (1030a2).

    Aristotle's Metaphysics Cohen, S. Marc 2008

  • The class of beings signified by a universal term of this sort is indeed prior to the universal term, e.g., the class of pale things to the universal term ˜pale™.

    Porphyry Emilsson, Eyjólfur 2005

  • But even if unorthodox, and pro-Executive, and aggressive, readings of the law are in some cases permissible, what should be beyond the pale is acting in accord with a body of secret law. continue reading ...

    Balkinization 2006

  • The raw nuts are then cooked, giving off a horrible odor and cracked open to reveal what we know as the pale tan cashew nut.

    Archive 2005-09-01 Michelle 2005

  • Local ones are fleshy, ripe, and burst with flavor, according to local growers n versus what they call the pale, mealy "wannabees" coming from out of state!

    unknown title 2009

  • Below, we see the children of Charles I of England (by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1637) where the girls are swathed in pale blue and the boy in bold pink:

    Tove Hermanson: Age and Gender Appropriate Fashion Tove Hermanson 2010

  • Below, we see the children of Charles I of England (by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1637) where the girls are swathed in pale blue and the boy in bold pink:

    Tove Hermanson: Age and Gender Appropriate Fashion Tove Hermanson 2010

  • Below, we see the children of Charles I of England (by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1637) where the girls are swathed in pale blue and the boy in bold pink:

    Tove Hermanson: Age and Gender Appropriate Fashion Tove Hermanson 2010

  • Below, we see the children of Charles I of England (by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1637) where the girls are swathed in pale blue and the boy in bold pink:

    Tove Hermanson: Age and Gender Appropriate Fashion Tove Hermanson 2010

  • Below, we see the children of Charles I of England (by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1637) where the girls are swathed in pale blue and the boy in bold pink:

    Tove Hermanson: Age and Gender Appropriate Fashion Tove Hermanson 2010

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