Pale (?), a. [Compar. Paler (?); superl. Palest.] [F. pale, fr. palir to turn pale, L. pallere to be o 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.
© Webster 1913.
Pale, n. Paleness; pallor. [R.]
Shak.
© Webster 1913.
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.
© Webster 1913.
Pale, v. t. To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near,
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Shak.
© Webster 1913.
Pale, n. [F. pal, fr. L. palus: cf. D. paal. See Pol 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.
© Webster 1913.
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 1913. | 
