pale
Part of speech: adj
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Etymology tree
Latin palleō
Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der.
Proto-Italic *-iðos
Latin -idus
Latin pallidus
Old French palebor.
Middle English pale
English pale
From Middle English pale, from Old French pale, from Latin pallidus (“pale, pallid”), from palleō (“to be pale; to grow pale; to fade”), from Proto-Indo-European *pelito-, from *pelH- (“gray”). Doublet of pallid. Displaced native Old English blāc.
Inflected forms:
form: paler
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: palest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: pales
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: paling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: paled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: paled
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Light in color.
pos: adj
examples: I have pale yellow wallpaper.
She had pale skin because she didn't get much sunlight.
She turned pale and screamed on seeing the spider in the toilet.
“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.[…]”
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.
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.
gloss: Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.).
pos: adj
examples: His face turned pale after hearing about his mother's death.
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.
gloss: Feeble, faint.
pos: adj
examples: He is but a pale shadow of his former self.
The son's clumsy paintings are a pale imitation of his father's.
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.
gloss: To turn pale; to lose colour.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: But a man— / Note men !—they are but women after all, / As women are but Auroras !—there are men / Born tender, apt to pale at a trodden worm, / Who paint for pastime, in their favourite dream, / Spruce auto-vestments flowered with crocus-flames / There are, too, who believe in hell and lie : […]
gloss: To become insignificant.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: (Although the conditions are rather different, the generosity of the offer certainly pales by comparison with the "Eurailpass" now available to tourists from North and South America at $125 (£44 13s.), which allows two months' unlimited first class travel throughout the railway systems of thirteen countries—[...].)
Its financing pales next to the tens of billions that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will have at its disposal, especially with the coming infusion of some $3 billion a year from Warren E. Buffett, the founder of Berkshire Hathaway.
12 July 2012, Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift
The matter of whether the world needs a fourth Ice Age movie pales beside the question of why there were three before it, but Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that’s already been settled.
gloss: To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The Glow-worme ſhowes the Matine to be neere, / And gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire : / Adue, adue, Hamlet : remember me.
Derived words: 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
pale in comparison
pale by comparison
Translations: