Definitions

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

  • noun Extreme or unnatural paleness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Paleness; wanness.

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

  • noun Paleness; want of color; pallidity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Paleness; want of color; pallidity.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun unnatural lack of color in the skin (as from bruising or sickness or emotional distress)

Etymologies

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

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

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin pallor ("paleness, pallor"), from palleō ("I am or look pale, blanch").

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Examples

  • Even though Freeman's lovely caramel pallor is at odds with these facts, he nonetheless projects the necessary authority to play America’s most-celebrated military and civil leader.

    Morgan Freeman Is Nelson Mandela In ‘Invictus’… Here Are Five More Historical Figures He Should Play » MTV Movies Blog 2009

  • Do this by wasting money every two weeks on at least one expensive rouge lipstick that, once you have left the shop, turns out to be too berry, too Royal Mail-box red, too silt puddle brown or too zany raspberry for your skin pallor.

    Slap shtick: How not to put on make-up Grace Dent 2010

  • He has a tendency to lose his temper and order God to curse people with his skin pallor.

    McCain: 2008

  • At his watchful distance, her pallor was a beacon, a broadcast resonance.

    The Best American Erotica 2006 Edited by Susie Bright 2006

  • At his watchful distance, her pallor was a beacon, a broadcast resonance.

    The Best American Erotica 2006 Edited by Susie Bright 2006

  • I assumed her pallor was the result of being indoors all the time and that the blue vein that beat wildly at her temple was a kind of inner metronome.

    Middlesex Eugenides, Jeffery 2002

  • The pallor might be the result of emotion, or it might be natural.

    Through the Wall Wentworth, Patricia 1950

  • It was anger that had seized Mrs. Strickland, and her pallor was the pallor of a cold and sudden rage.

    Moon and Sixpence 1919

  • The pallor is the pallor of hardship, often of the lack of the right kind of nourishment, but the stillness is not the result of inward personal calm and peace.

    A Circuit Rider's Wife Corra Harris 1902

  • We both, she and I, took after our mother, were broad shouldered, strongly built, and capable of endurance, but her pallor was a sign of ill-health; she often had a cough, and I sometimes caught in her face that look one sees in people who are seriously ill, but for some reason conceal the fact.

    The Chorus Girl and Other Stories Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 1882

Comments

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  • Like wine grown stale, the street-lamp’s pallor seeks

    The wilted anger of her scarlet lips,

    And bitter, evanescent finger-tips

    Of unsaid questions play upon her cheeks.

    She sways a little, and her tired breath,

    Fumbling at the crucifix of her mind,

    Draws out the aged nails, now dull and kind,

    That once were sharp loves hardening in their death.

    - Maxwell Bodenheim, 'Sonnet'.

    September 21, 2009

  • malaise and pallor

    December 12, 2009

  • Annie Clark (St. Vincent) uses pallor twice in "Jesus Saves, I Spend" from her album Marry Me.

    "While Jesus is saving, I'm spending all my days

    in the garden-grey pallor of lines across your face"

    and

    "While Jesus is saving I'm spending all my grace

    on rosy-red pallor of lights on center stage".

    March 31, 2010