Pale

a. [compar. PALER; superl. PALEST.] [Fr. pâle, O. Fr. pale, palle, pasle, Pr. palle, Sp. palido, It. pallido, Lat. pallidus, from pallere, to be or look pale.] 1. Not ruddy or fresh of color; deficient in intensity or energy of color; dusky white; pallid; wan; as, a pale face, a pale red, a pale blue. They are not of complexion red or pale. Randolph. 2. Not bright or brilliant; of a faint luster; dim; as, the pale light of the moon. The night, methinks, is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler. Shak. Pale is sometimes used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, pale-colored, pale-eyed, pale-face, pale-faced, pale-glimmering, pale-hearted, pale-leaved, pale-looking, pale-visaged, and the like.

v. i. [imp. & p. p. PALED; p. pr. & vb. n. PALING.] To turn pale.

There are men Born tender, apt to pale at a trodden worm. E. B. Browning.

No paling of the cheek of bloom Forewarned us of decay. Whittier.

v. t. To make pale.

[A-S., Fr., & Pr. pal, from Lat. pālus, It. & Sp. palo; L. Ger. & D. paal, N. H. Ger. pfahl, Dan. pāl, Sw. pāle. Cf. POLE.]

1Sense 1. A narrow board, pointed or sharpened at one end, used in fencing or inclosing; a pointed stake driven into the ground and fastened to a rail at the top; a picket.

2Sense 2. That which incloses or fences in; an inclosing boundary; a limit; a fence.

3Sense 3. Hence, space inclosed; an inclosure; a limited territory or region. “To walk the studious cloister’s pale.” Milton. “Completely out of the pale of civilization.” Macaulay.

4Sense 4. (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.

5Sense 5. An instrument for ascertaining the quality of cheese; a cheese-scoop. Simmonds.

English pale (Hist.), the limits or territory within which the English conquerors of Ireland held their dominion for a long period after their invasion of the country in 1172. “There is no part but the bare English pale in which the Irish have not the greatest footing.” Spencer.

v. t. [D. paalen, Ger. pfählen.] To inclose with pales or stakes; to inclose; to encompass.

The English beach Pales in the flood with men, with wives, and boys. Shak.