pail

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English paile, also paille and paiel,^[2] probably borrowed from Old French paele,^{[3][4][5][6][2]} the Anglo-Norman form, also paelle, paiele and paile, meaning a pan or a bucket;^[6][7] in Old French the word meant a frying pan (about 1150), a warming pan, brazier or cauldron, a salt pan and a liquid measure.^[6][5] It is now French poêle.^[6][8] The French word is from Latin patella (“small pan, dish, plate”),^[6][3][4][5] a diminutive of patina (“broad shallow pan”).^[3][5] Medieval Latin also had paella, from the late 12th century in British sources.^[6]

The revised OED holds that Old English pæġel, a wine vessel or liquid measure, is unrelated,^[6] and Barnhart and Etymonline also doubt a direct link, since the Old English word is recorded about three centuries before the Middle English one.^[5][3] Other dictionaries take the English word from the Old English one: Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Klein derive it probably from the Old English word, influenced by the French word,^[9][10][11] and the Shorter Oxford and Dictionary.com give it as the Old English word, later associated with the French one.^[8][12] The Oxford Dictionary of English calls the origin uncertain and compares both,^[13] and Weekley noted that the Old English word would give the modern form but not the final -e of the Middle English spellings, which the French word explains, while neither explains the sense.^[14] The Old English word glosses Latin gillo and is cognate with Dutch peil, German Pegel, Danish pægl and West Frisian pegel; the OED and Klein take them all from Medieval Latin pagella (“a measure”), from Latin pāgella (“small page, column”), a diminutive of pāgina (“page”),^[6][11][9] while Hoad calls the Old English word of unknown origin.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bucket, especially one for milking, and also a kitchen vessel for food: 1341–2, in the Sacrist Rolls of Ely.^[6][2] Barnhart dates payle to 1336–37, as a container or kitchen utensil, with the sense bucket from 1352–53;^[5][16] the OED notes that it is unclear whether the earliest examples in these Latin accounts show the English or the Anglo-Norman word.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the late 15th century the word also meant a shallow pan, especially a salt pan for boiling brine, a sense of the French word that Caxton used in 1481 and that died out by 1494.^[6] The bucket sense spread to the amount a pail holds (1592) and to phrases about milking (1615).^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as a wooden vessel for carrying milk or water, with an etymology from Spanish paila.^[17] In Dorset a cow in full pail was in full milk, and in Gloucestershire a pail-stake was a branched bough on which milk pails were hung.^[18] The verb, to carry liquid in a pail or to milk a cow, is recorded from 1807.^[6] In slang the noun was used for the vagina (from 1836) and, in African-American use, for the stomach.^[19]

Timeline

• 1341 – a bucket or pail.^[6][2]
• 1481 – a shallow pan, a salt pan (obsolete by 1494).^[6]
• 1592 – the contents of a pail, a pailful.^[6]
• 1615 – in phrases about milking.^[6]
• 1807 – verb, to carry liquid in a pail; to milk.^[6]
• 1836 – slang, the vagina.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A round, open-topped vessel with a handle, used for carrying liquids or solids; a bucket: She filled the pail at the pump.^[20][9][6]
2. The amount a pail holds; a pailful.^[20][6]
3. A tapered or cylindrical shipping container, especially for ice cream and other moist foods.^[9]

Verb

1. (regional) To milk a cow.^[9][6]
2. To carry or pour liquid in a pail.^[6]

Word family

• pailful

Related words

• paella
• patella
• paten

Usage notes

In Cheshire and other northern dialects a separate verb pail, of unknown origin, meant to beat or thrash, and also to beat the awns off barley.^[18][9] The OED records a dialect noun pail, a spike or awn of barley, from 1887, perhaps an alteration of pile.^[6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
20. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins