paling

Etymology

verb

1. present participle and gerund of pale

noun

1. A pointed stick used to make a fence.
   The boys continued hitting the tennis ball with pailings snatched from a fence […] 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 20, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 117
   The smell of the damp eucalypt palings that clad the walls exhaling their aromatic resin into the house, mingling with the fragrance of the myrtle burning in the fireplace. 1997, Richard Flanagan, chapter 6, in The Sound of One Hand Clapping, New York: Grove Press, published 2014
2. A fence made of palings.
   1789, Alderman Le Mesurier), addressing the House of Commons, in The Parliamentary Register, London: John Debrett, Volume 26, p. 172, Gentlemen must have observed that many of the nurserymen’s plantations were wide and extensive, some of them covering several acres; and that their palings and fences were for the most part low, and might be so weak and out of repair, as to afford a very insufficient security against the inroads of robbers and spoilers.
3. (Caribbean) A fence made of galvanized sheeting.
   He worked badly. He had to paint a large sign on a corrugated iron paling. Doing letters on a corrugated surface was bad enough; to paint a cow and a gate, as he had to, was maddening. 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, London: André Deutsch, Part One, Chapter 3, p. 118