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pall

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Etymology and origin of the English word pall

Pronunciation

  • UK: /pɔːl/[1]

pall1 cloth, covering

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
Ælfric's Colloquy
Borrowed from
Latin pallium via Middle English, Old English
Ultimate origin
Latin pallium
Etymology tree of pall1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pallium
English pall
From the same root · pall1
Latin palliātus ← pallium
Latin palliolum ← pallium

Etymology

The word for the cloth is inherited from Middle English pal,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English pæll (“rich cloth or cloak, purple robe, altar cloth”),[3][5][4][6] borrowed from Latin pallium (“covering, cloak”).[7][3][4][8] The Middle English Dictionary also counts Old French paile among its sources,[2] recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1120–40 for fine cloth, a shroud and the archbishop's mantle.[9] The Latin word meant a Greek mantle or philosopher's cloak, and in Tertullian the garment worn by Christians instead of the toga.[8][3] It is related to palla (“long upper garment of Roman women”),[3][10][11] and perhaps comes from the root of pellis (“skin”),[3][10] though Partridge thinks that less likely.[11] Klein adds Old Norse feldr (“sheepskin, mantle”) as a probable cognate.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Fine or rich cloth, and a robe or altar cloth of it: Old English, with the OED's first quotations from Ælfric,[7] where it glosses pallium.[6] Barnhart dates the Old English word to before 899.[5]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word already covered the cloth, garments made from it, purple dye and cloths for the altar.[7][6] A rich coverlet or canopy followed in Middle English, from about 1275, in Laȝamon,[7] and the cloth spread over a coffin from about 1400.[7][5] Weekley observes that the funeral use, from the 15th century, did not at first imply a mourning colour;[12] the OED lists black, purple or white velvet.[7] The garment sense narrowed to the archbishop's pallium, in Trevisa,[7][8] which gave the Y-shaped charge of heraldry from 1562.[7] Johnson (1755) still put the "cloak or mantle of state" first, quoting Spenser and Milton's "scepter'd pall".[13] In Scots ballads it remained a rich cloth, a use that Scott's Minstrelsy preserves.[14] From before 1450, in The Castle of Perseverance, it was also anything that covers or conceals;[7][3] the dark, gloomy covering or mood is recorded from 1742,[5][3] and the phrase to cast a pall over from 1822.[7] Tarpaulin is, according to Etymonline, a hybrid of tar and palling.[3]

Timeline

  • Old English – fine or rich cloth; a robe or mantle; an altar cloth; a purple dye.[7][6]
  • c. 1275 – a rich cloth spread over something, a coverlet or canopy.[7]
  • before 1387 – an archbishop's vestment, the pallium.[7]
  • c. 1400 – a cloth spread over a coffin, hearse or tomb.[7][5]
  • c. 1440 – verb, to drape with rich cloth or cover as with a pall.[7][2]
  • before 1450 – something that covers or conceals.[7][3]
  • 1562 – in heraldry, a Y-shaped charge.[7]
  • 1643 – a robe put on a monarch at the coronation (obsolete by 1847).[7]
  • 1707 – pall bearer, one who holds the corners of the pall at a funeral.[5]
  • 1742 – a dark, gloomy covering or mood.[5][3]
  • 1822 – to cast a pall over.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A cloth, usually black, spread over a coffin, hearse or tomb.[15][16][7]
  2. A coffin, especially during a funeral.[15]
  3. A dark, heavy covering, as of cloud or smoke: a pall of smoke over the harbour.[15][7]
  4. A gloomy or oppressive atmosphere: The news cast a pall over the wedding.[15][7]
  5. A small square of linen covering the chalice at the Eucharist.[15][16][17]
  6. The pallium worn by an archbishop.[15][7][16]
  7. (heraldry) A Y-shaped charge representing the front of an archbishop's pallium.[15][7][17]
  8. (archaic) Rich, fine cloth, as for the robes of people of rank.[16][7][17]
  9. (archaic) A cloak or mantle, especially of rich material.[16][7][17][13]
  10. (archaic) An altar cloth.[16][7][17]

Verb

  1. To cover with a pall or as if with one; to drape: Fog palled the valley.[16][17][7]

Word family

  • pallbearer
  • tarpaulin

pall2 become wearisome

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Clipping
First attested
c. 1335 Kildare Poems
Ultimate origin
Latin palleō

Etymology

The word for becoming wearisome is inherited from Middle English pallen,[2][3][4] a shortening from Middle English apallen,[2][7][16][8][17] as the OED, the Middle English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Unabridged state outright, while the American Heritage Dictionary calls it probable and Barnhart possible.[7][2][16][4][5] That longer verb, the modern appall, is from Old French apalir (“to become or make pale”), from Latin palleō (“to be pale”).[3][16] Weekley takes the shortening in the original sense of losing colour, and so flavour.[12] Mayhew and Skeat instead derived it directly from pallir (“to grow pale”).[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

To grow weak or faint, to lose strength or courage: about 1335, in the Kildare Poems.[7] Barnhart dates it to before 1325,[5][19] and Etymonline to the late 14th century.[3]

Semantic evolution

The modern meaning grew out of a fading of strength.[7][3] By before 1393, in Gower, it could mean to enfeeble.[7][2] From 1440 it was used of drink going flat,[7][2][8] as in Palsgrave's "this drinke wyll pall, if it stande uncovered all nyght" (1530).[12] Tastelessness then passed from drink to the person tasting it: to make stale from 1601, in Jonson,[7] to satiate or cloy from 1680,[7] and, on the thing's side, to become insipid or tiresome around 1700.[7][19][3] Barnhart credits Addison and Steele with popularizing that sense in the early 1700s,[19] and the construction with on or upon appears in Addison's Cato (1713).[7] A noun for the disgust that comes from satiety was used in 1699, by Shaftesbury.[7][16] In Lincolnshire dialect the verb meant to surfeit, and in Devon to turn pale.[14]

Timeline

  • c. 1335 – to grow weak or faint (obsolete by 1867).[7][2]
  • before 1393 – to enfeeble, daunt or impair (obsolete by 1808).[7][2]
  • 1440 – of drink, to go flat or stale (obsolete by 1669).[7][2]
  • 1601 – to make flat or stale.[7]
  • 1680 – to satiate or cloy.[7]
  • 1699 – noun, a feeling of disgust from satiety.[7]
  • 1700 – to become insipid or tiresome, in Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.[19][3] The OED's first quotation is from T. Brown, before 1704.[7]
  • 1713 – with on or upon, in Addison's Cato.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To become less interesting or attractive, especially through familiarity, often with on or upon: Even the best jokes pall after a week at sea.[15][16][7][17]
  2. To lose one's taste for something once enjoyed; to become satiated.[16][17]
  3. To cloy or satiate the appetite or senses.[7][17]
  4. (obsolete, c. 1335–1867) To grow weak or faint.[7][16][2]
  5. (obsolete, 1393–1808) To enfeeble or impair.[7][17][2]
  6. (obsolete, 1440–1669) Of wine or beer, to go flat.[7][16][17]

Usage notes

Middle English also had pallen, to beat or strike down, perhaps from pale in the sense of a stake, recorded from about 1390.[7][2] In 19th-century British slang pall also meant to detect, of unknown origin.[20]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  6. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  12. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  14. ^ 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)
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  18. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  19. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  20. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com

Related etymologies

  • swarm · also from Old English
  • dusk · also from Old English
  • stride · also from Old English
  • abbot · also from Old English
  • bearer · also from Old English
  • override · also from Old English
  • morrow · also from Old English
  • hemp · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Pall.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/pall. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·