palette

Etymology

It is borrowed from French palette, which meant a painter's palette by 1621,^[2][3][4] originally palete (“small shovel, blade”) (13th century),^[5][3] a diminutive of pale (“shovel, oar blade”)^[5][3][6] formed with the suffix -ette.^[3][4] The French noun continues Latin pāla (“spade, shoulder blade”).^[5][7][3][8] Dictionary.com and Skeat take the French word through paletta, a diminutive of pala (“shovel”).^[9][10] Etymonline traces the Latin noun to a suffixed form of Proto-Indo-European *pag- (“to fasten”),^[5][7] and Merriam-Webster relates it to pangō (“to fix, fasten”), the source of pact;^[4] Barnhart thinks it is perhaps related to pālus (“stake”), the source of pale.^[3] Hoad treats it with pallet, a word of the same origin.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thin, flat board on which a painter lays out and mixes colours: 1622, in Henry Peacham's Compleat Gentleman.^[2][3][4] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the word only to the late 18th century.^[12][8]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as "a light board on which a painter holds his colours", quoting Dryden.^[13] French had used palette for the range of colours of a painter since 1733,^[2] and the English sense, the colours used by a particular artist or in a particular picture, is recorded from 1782 in the OED,^[2] from 1882 in Etymonline.^[5] In the 20th century the word was extended to any range of things to choose from, and in music to the range of tonal or instrumental colour of a composer or work (1953),^[2] and in computing to the colours, fonts or tools a program offers, or a window listing them (1975).^[2] The palette knife, first used by artists to mix colours, is recorded by 1759.^[5] Zoologists used palette from 1834 for a disc-like structure in molluscs and insects, and card players from 1949 for the banker's implement for moving cards and chips.^[2]

Timeline

• 1622 – an artist's board for mixing colours.^[2][3]
• 1759 – palette knife.^[5]
• 1782 – the range of colours used by an artist or in a picture.^[2]
• 1834 – (zoology) a disc-like structure.^[2]
• 1949 – (cards) the banker's implement for moving cards and chips.^[2]
• 1953 – any range of things to choose from; in music, a range of tonal colour.^[2]
• 1975 – (computing) the colours or tools available to a user.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A thin board or slab, often with a hole for the thumb, on which an artist lays out and mixes paints.
2. The range of colours used by a particular artist or in a particular painting: His later work has a much darker palette.
3. (computing) The range of colours, fonts or tools available to the user of a program, or the window that displays them.
4. Any range of things from which a choice can be made; in music, the range of tonal colour of a composer or piece.

Word family

• palettelike
• palette knife

Related words

• pallet
• pale
• pact
• peel

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.