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pallet

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Etymology and origin of the English word pallet

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈpælɪt/[1]
  • US: /ˈpælɪt/, /ˈpælət/[1]

pallet1 straw bed

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1370
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman paillete via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin palea
Etymology tree of pallet1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin palea
English pallet

Etymology

The straw bed is inherited from Middle English paillet, also pailet and palet,[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman paillete (“straw, bundle of straw”),[4][3][5][6][2] which the OED gives as paillet (“heap or bundle of straw, chaff”), recorded from about 1130.[7] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the early 12th century in the senses "chaff, straw", "straw bed" and "spangle".[8] It is formed from paille (“straw, chaff”) and the diminutive suffix -et,[7][8] and the French noun is from Latin palea (“chaff, straw”).[4][3][5][9] Etymonline suggests that the Latin word comes from Proto-Indo-European *pelh- (“chaff”), which also gave Lithuanian pelūs (“chaff”),[4] and Barnhart traces it to Proto-Indo-European *pel-.[3] The same French noun is the source of paillasse.[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bed or mattress of straw: 1370, in a Benedictine inventory,[7][3] and as paillet about 1385 in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, his only use of the word.[3][11] The Middle English Dictionary also records it for a small or simple bed and, in medicine, a pad used in dressing a wound.[2]

Semantic evolution

From a mattress stuffed with straw the word moved to any poor, narrow or makeshift bed;[7][12] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a small bed; a mean bed", and suggested it came from French paille, straw.[13] In the southern and other regional speech of the United States it came to mean, from 1839, a bed of quilts or blankets spread on the floor, often for a child.[7][14][15] The verb to pallet, to bed someone down on a pallet, is recorded from 1821.[7] A nautical pallet, a small compartment for ballast in a ship's hold (about 1643 to 1867), is placed here by the Shorter Oxford with the note that it may be another word, and the OED is likewise unsure where it belongs.[5][7]

Timeline

  • 1370 – a straw bed or mattress.[7][3]
  • c. 1385 – the form paillet, in Chaucer.[3]
  • c. 1643 – in ships, a small compartment for ballast (obsolete by 1867).[7]
  • 1821 – verb, to bed someone down on a pallet.[7]
  • 1839 – in the United States, a makeshift bed of bedclothes on the floor.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A mattress stuffed with straw; a narrow, hard or makeshift bed: The pilgrims slept on pallets in the barn.[14][12][15][7]
  2. (US) A temporary bed of blankets or quilts spread on the floor: We made up a pallet for the children by the fire.[14][15][7]
  3. (obsolete, 1643–1867) In a ship, a small compartment in the hold for ballast.[7][5]

pallet2 tool, platform

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1425 probably before 1425, translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie
Borrowed from
Old French palete via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin pāla
Etymology tree of pallet2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pala
English pallet
From the same root · pallet2
Latin bipalium ← pala

Etymology

The flat tool is inherited from Middle English palet,[2][3] borrowed from Old French palete (“small shovel or blade”),[4][3][9][2] a diminutive of pale (“spade, shovel, blade”),[4][3][16] which is from Latin pāla (“spade, shovel”), related to pālus (“stake”).[3][16][5][10] The OED takes it as partly borrowed from Medieval Latin paleta (“flat instrument”), found in Guy de Chauliac in 1363, and partly borrowed from Middle French palette, recorded from 1380.[7] It is the same French word as palette, the artist's board, which was adopted in its French spelling in the early 17th century.[4][17][18] The loading platform is a later sense of this word, not a separate borrowing: the OED, Etymonline and Word Origins all treat it under the tool.[7][4][18]

Earliest recorded meaning

A flat instrument for pressing down the tongue: probably before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.[2][3][7] Merriam-Webster dates the tool sense to the 15th century,[15] while Collins dates the word to the 16th century and Dictionary.com to 1550–60.[12][19]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was medical,[4][7] but the word soon covered many flat-bladed tools with handles, above all the potter's tool for shaping and beating clay.[7][15][16] From there it was applied to flat parts of machines and instruments: a projection that engages the teeth of a wheel, as in a clock's escapement (1676, in R. Hooke's journal), a valve in an organ's windchest (about 1695), the board on which newly moulded bricks are turned out (1839), and a bookbinder's tool for stamping letters (1875).[7][14][16] The portable platform on which goods are stacked and moved by a forklift dates from 1921,[7][4][18] and in 1989 it gave the verb to pallet, to stack goods on pallets.[7]

Timeline

  • before 1425 – a flat instrument for depressing the tongue; later a flat-bladed tool, especially the potter's.[2][7][3]
  • 1676 – a projection on a machine part that engages the teeth of a wheel.[7]
  • c. 1695 – a valve in the windchest of an organ.[7]
  • 1839 – in brickmaking, a board for newly moulded bricks.[7]
  • 1875 – a bookbinder's tool for impressing letters.[7]
  • 1921 – a portable platform for moving and storing goods.[7][4]
  • 1989 – verb, to place or stack goods on pallets.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A portable platform on which goods are stacked so that they can be moved, stored or shipped, especially with a forklift: The warehouse stacked the bags on pallets.[14][12][7]
  2. A flat-bladed wooden tool with a handle, used by potters for shaping clay.[14][12][15][7]
  3. A projection on a machine part, such as a pawl in a watch's escapement, that engages the teeth of a wheel to change reciprocating into rotary motion or the reverse.[14][7]
  4. A tool for stamping letters or designs on the cover of a book, or for applying gold leaf.[14][7]
  5. A valve in the windchest of an organ that opens when a key is pressed.[7]
  6. A painter's palette.[14][15]

Word family

  • palletize
  • palletise

Usage notes

Collins warns against confusing pallet with palette and palate.[12] Several minor words of the same spelling are recorded: an obsolete pallet meaning a helmet or headpiece, and later the head, from French palet, a diminutive of pal, stake;[7][5][2] in heraldry, a narrow pale, half the width of the ordinary one;[7][5][15] and in Scots, a humorous word for the head.[20][15]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  13. ^ 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 c d e f g h i The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  16. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  18. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  20. ^ 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)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pallet.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/pallet. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

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