gall
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɡɔːl/
ipa: /ɡɑl/
rhymes: -ɔːl
homophone: Gaul
Forms: form: galls
form: galling
form: galled
form: galled
Etymology: From Middle English galle, from Old English gealla (“a fretted spot on the skin”), from Proto-West Germanic *gallō, from Proto-Germanic *gallô (“infirmity, swelling, lesion”).
Senses: examples: text: […] he went awkwardly in these clothes at first: wearing the drawers was very awkward to him, and the sleeves of the waistcoat galled his shoulders and the inside of his arms; but a little easing them where he complained they hurt him, and using himself to them, he took to them at length very well.
ref: 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC:
glosses: To chafe, to rub or subject to friction; to create a sore on the skin.
examples: text: I went below, and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a good deal, and still bled freely; but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm.
ref: 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “‘Pieces of Eight’”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part V (My Sea Adventure), page 219:
text: Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
glosses: To bother or trouble.
examples: text: The disposition for these detachments is as follows – Morgans corps, to gain the enemy’s right flank; Maxwells brigade to hang on their left. Brigadier Genl. Scott is now marching with a very respectable detachment destined to gall the enemys left flank and rear.
ref: June 24, 1778, George Washington, The Writings of George Washington From the Original Manuscript Sources: Volume 12, 1745–1799
glosses: To harass, to harry, often with the intent to cause injury.
examples: text: Metrinko was hungry, but he was galled by how self-congratulatory his captors seemed, how generous and noble and proudly Islamic.
ref: 1979 December, Mark Bowden, “Captivity Pageant”, in The Atlantic, volume 296, number 5, pages 92–97:
glosses: To exasperate.
examples: text: Improper cooling and a dull milling cutter on titanium can gall the surface.
topics: engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
technical
glosses: To cause pitting on a surface being cut from the friction between the two surfaces exceeding the bond of the material at a point.
examples: text: I have seen you gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel
ref: 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
glosses: To scoff; to jeer.
Derived terms: begall
galler