pale

pale is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 12 senses, and appears in Roget's Thesaurus (1911) with 40 related terms. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.Not bright or brilliant; of a faint luster or hue; dim; as, the pale light of the moon. The night, methinks, is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler. Shak. Note: Pale is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, pale-colored, pale-eyed, pale-faced, pale-looking, etc.
  2. 2.Paleness; pallor. [R.] Shak.
  3. 3.To turn pale; to lose color or luster. Whittier. Apt to pale at a trodden worm. Mrs. Browning.
  4. 4.To make pale; to diminish the brightness of. The glowpale his uneffectual fire. Shak.
  5. 5.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. Deer creep through when a pale tumbles down. Mortimer.
  6. 6.That which incloses or fences in; a boundary; a limit; a fence; a palisade. "Within one pale or hedge." Robynson (More's Utopia).
  7. 7.A space or field having bounds or limits; a limited region or place; an inclosure; -- often used figuratively. "To walk the studious cloister's pale." Milton. "Out of the pale of civilization." Macaulay.
  8. 8.A stripe or band, as on a garment. Chaucer.
  9. 9.(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.
  10. 10.A cheese scoop. Simmonds.
  11. 11.(Shipbuilding) A shore for bracing a timber before it is fastened. English pale (Hist.), the limits or territory within which alone the English conquerors of Ireland held dominion for a long period after their invasion of the country in 1172. Spencer.
  12. 12.To inclose with pales, or as with pales; to encircle; to encompass; to fence off. [Your isle, which stands] ribbed and paled in With rocks unscalable and roaring waters. Shak.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Synonyms

Related questions

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is pale.

Sources

  • Definitions: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
  • Synonyms & antonyms: Roget's Thesaurus, 1911 edition (public domain, via Project Gutenberg eBook #10681).
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