pale
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: pāl
ipa: /peɪl/
rhymes: -eɪl
homophone: pail
Forms: form: paler
form: palest
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: I have pale yellow wallpaper.
text: She had pale skin because she didn't get much sunlight.
text: She turned pale and screamed on seeing the spider in the toilet.
text: “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better.[…]”
ref: 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: A rangy, gangly, Scandinavian youth of a sailor, droop-shouldered, six feet six and slender as a lath, with pallid eyes of palest blue and skin and hair attuned to the same colour scheme, joined Kwaque in his work.
ref: 1917, Jack London, chapter XV, in Michael, Brother of Jerry:
text: Three years later, the unwatered cactus was still about two feet tall, a dark green color. The watered cactus was a paler green, its trunk visibly swollen with moisture. It had grown to be over five feet tall.
ref: 2013, Leslie Morgan Steiner, The Baby Chase:
glosses: Light in color.
examples: text: His face turned pale after hearing about his mother's death.
text: 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.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
glosses: Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.).
raw_tags: of human skin
examples: text: He is but a pale shadow of his former self.
text: The son's clumsy paintings are a pale imitation of his father's.
text: Many in the gay community were quick to assure everyone that gay marriage was not on the horizon. One community leader even tried to stop the introduction of a "domestic partnership" bill—at best a pale substitute for marriage—claiming that it would have polarized our opposition.
ref: 1991 February 11, Jeffery R. Nickel, “Going To The Chapel”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 29, page 8:
glosses: Feeble, faint.
Derived terms: American pale ale
deathly pale
double India pale ale
empale
English pale
English pale ale
green and pale
imperial India pale ale
India pale ale
interpale
pale ale
paleaquult
pale as a ghost
pale as death
pale as milk
paleass
pale blue dot
pale-browed tinamou
pale chub
pale clouded yellow
pale face
paleface
pale-faced antbird
pale-faced bare-eye
pale-footed bush warbler
pale fox
pale goldfinch
pale-headed rosella
pale into insignificance
pale juniper webworm
paleleaf
palely
pale male
palemouth
paleness
pale rider
palesome
pale-spotted emperor
pale swallowtail
pale-throated sloth
pale thrush
pale touch-me-not
pale weasel
pale western cutworm
palewise
palish
paly
per pale
unpale