pallid

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pallidus (“pale, colourless”),^[2][3][4][5] from palleō (“to be pale”).^[2][4][5] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take the Latin verb back to Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“pale”),^[3][5] and the OED and Ayto see the same base in fallow, the OED with "probably".^[2][6] Partridge compares Lithuanian pilkas (“grey”) and Old High German falo (“livid, pale”).^[7] It is a doublet of pale, which came from the same Latin adjective through Old French,^[3][6] and pallor is from the same verb.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lacking depth of colour; faint or wan: 1590, in Spenser's Faerie Queene.^[2][4][10] Etymonline has the 1580s and Dictionary.com 1580–90,^[3][11] while Hoad and Collins put it in the 17th century.^[9][12]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the adjective was used especially of paleness from illness or strong emotion.^[2] In English the OED finds it chiefly in poetry before the 19th century,^[2] and Johnson (1755) remarked that it "is seldom used of the face", quoting Spenser's "the violet pallid blue" and Thomson's "pallid sky".^[13] The later dictionaries show the reverse, with the human face as the typical use.^[2][10] Spenser had already stretched the word in 1596,^[2] and the figurative sense, lacking sparkle or vigour, is now recorded for performances and writing.^[10][12][5] The English Dialect Dictionary records an obsolete Durham use, striped or made of cloth of different colours, from charters of Finchale Priory published in 1837.^[14]

Timeline

• 1590 – lacking depth of colour; of the face, wan.^[2][4][10]
• mid 17th century – the derivatives pallidly and pallidness.^[15]
• early 19th century – the derivative pallidity.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the face or skin, abnormally pale; wan, especially from illness or shock: his pallid cheeks.^{[5][10][2][12]}
2. Lacking intensity of colour or brightness: a pallid dawn.^{[5][10][2][12]}
3. Lacking vigour or liveliness; dull, insipid: a pallid remake.^{[5][10][12][16]}

Word family

• pallidly
• pallidness
• pallidity

Related words

• pale
• pallor
• appal
• pall
• fallow

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ 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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers