pale

Etymology 1

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

adj

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's death.
   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. 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess
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.

verb

1. (intransitive) To turn pale; to lose colour.
   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 : […] 1856, Elizabeth Browning, Aurora Leigh, New York: C. S. Francis & Co., published 1857, page 282
2. (intransitive) To become insignificant.
   (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—….) 1959 May, “Talking of Trains: "Rail-rovers" again”, in Trains Illustrated, page 236
   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. 2006-09-14, Katie Hafner, “Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual”, in The New York Times
   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.

noun

1. (obsolete) Paleness; pallor.

Etymology 2

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.

noun

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, […] 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.
   Ceiling joists were sometimes grooved to receive riven staves or pales that secured mud-and-straw walling. 1997, Gabrielle M. Lanier, Bernard L. Herman, Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic, page 90
   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, 2015, Mark E. Reinberger, Elizabeth McLean, The Philadelphia Country House
2. (archaic) Fence made from wooden stake; palisade.
   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 …. 1615, Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia, London: William Welby, page 13
3. (by extension) Limits, bounds (especially before of).
   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. 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
   Men so situated, beyond the pale of the honor and the law, are not to be trusted. 1900, Jack London, The Son of the Wolf:The Wisdom of the Trail
   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. 1919, B. G. Jefferis, J. L. Nichols, Searchlights on Health:When and Whom to Marry
4. The bounds of morality, good behaviour or judgment in civilized company, in the phrase beyond the pale.
   .@realDonaldTrump saying that he might not accept election results is beyond the pale. October 19 2016, Jeff Flake, Twitter
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).
      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. 2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate, published 2010, page 402
      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. 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 73
   3. (historical) A portion of Russia in which Jews were permitted to live.
7. (archaic) The jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) of an authority.
8. A cheese scoop.

verb

1. To enclose with pales, or as if with pales; to encircle or encompass; to fence off.