pallet

Etymology 1

From Middle English palet, from Anglo-Norman palete, from Old Norse pallr. Doublet of palette.

noun

1. A portable platform, usually designed to be easily moved by a forklift, on which goods can be stacked, for transport or storage.

verb

1. (transitive) To load or stack (goods) onto pallets.

Etymology 2

From Middle English paillet, from Anglo-Norman paillete (“bundle of straw”), from Old French paille (“straw, chaff”), from Latin palea (“chaff”).

noun

1. A straw bed.
2. (by extension) A makeshift bed.

Etymology 3

From Latin palla (“to cut”), hence “a strip of cloth”.

noun

1. (heraldry) A narrow vertical stripe, narrower than a pale">pale. Diminutive of pale">pale.

Etymology 4

noun

1. (painting) Archaic form of palette.
   The Old Dragon fled when the wonder he spied, / And cursed his own fruitless endeavor; / While the Painter call'd after his rage to deride, / Shook his pallet and brushes in triumph, and cried, / "I'll paint thee more ugly than ever!" 1798, Robert Southey, The Pious Painter
   For example, let a painter's pallet be suspended from the thumb-hole, as in the figure […] 1860, Chambers's Information for the People, volume 1, page 203
2. A wooden implement, often oval or round, used by potters, crucible makers, etc., for forming, beating, and rounding their works.
3. A potter's wheel.
4. (gilding) An instrument used to take up gold leaf from the pillow, and to apply it.
5. (gilding) A tool for gilding the backs of books over the bands.
6. (brickmaking) A board on which a newly moulded brick is conveyed to the hack.
7. (engineering) A click or pawl for driving a ratchet wheel.
8. (engineering) One of the series of disks or pistons in the chain pump.
9. (horology) One of the pieces or levers connected with the pendulum of a clock, or the balance of a watch, which receive the immediate impulse of the scape-wheel, or balance wheel.
   the swing wheel […]is represented as being locked by one of its teeth on the nib or detent part of the right hand pallet, and the moment when the wheel is unlocked, the tooth at the left hand pallet is ready to press forward and raise up that pallet 1832, Thomas Reid, Treatise on Clock and Watch Making
10. (music) In the organ, a valve between the wind chest and the mouth of a pipe or row of pipes.
11. (zoology) One of a pair of shelly plates that protect the siphon tubes of certain bivalves, such as the Teredo.
12. A cup containing three ounces, formerly used by surgeons.