Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Pale

Pale (pāl), a. [Compar. Paler; superl. Palest.] [F. pâle, fr. pâlir to turn pale, L. pallere to be or look pale. Cf. Appall, Fallow, pall, v. i., Pallid.]

1. Wanting in color; not ruddy; dusky white; pallid; wan; as, a pale face; a pale red; a pale blue. "Pale as a forpined ghost." Chaucer.

Speechless he stood and pale. Milton.

They are not of complexion red or pale. T. Randolph.

2. 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.

☞ Pale is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, pale-colored, pale-eyed, pale-faced, pale-looking, etc.

Pale, n. Paleness; pallor. [R.] Shak.

Pale, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Paled; p. pr. & vb. n. Paling.] To turn pale; to lose color or luster. Whittier.

Apt to pale at a trodden worm. Mrs. Browning.

Pale, v. t. To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, And gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Shak.

Pale, n. [F. pal, fr. L. palus: cf. D. paal. See Pole a stake, and lst Pallet.] 1. 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.

2. That which incloses or fences in; a boundary; a limit; a fence; a palisade. "Within one pale or hedge." Robynson (More's Utopia).

3. 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.

4. A stripe or band, as on a garment. Chaucer.

5. (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.

6. A cheese scoop. Simmonds.

7. (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.

Pale, v. t. 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.