Pale

From Middle English, from Old French pale, from Latin pallidus ("pale, pallid").

Full definition of pale

Light in color.
I have pale yellow wallpaper.
She had pale skin because she didn't get much sunlight.
(of human skin) Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.).

1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 5, Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.

(intransitive) To become insignificant.2006 New York Times Its financing pales next to the tens of billions that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will have at its disposal, ...

12 July 2012, Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental DriftThe matter of whether the world needs a fourth Ice Age movie pales beside the question of why there were three before it, but Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory thatâ€™s already been settled.

ShakespeareThe glowworm shows the matin to be near,
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

From Middle English, from Latin pÄlus ("stake, prop").

(plural pales)

1615, Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia, Richmond 1957, p. 13:Fourthly, they shall not vpon any occasion whatsoeuer breake downe any of our pales, or come into any of our Townes or forts by any other waies, issues or ports then ordinary ....

Miltonto walk the studious cloister's pale
1900, Jack London, :Men so situated, beyond the pale of the honor and the law, are not to be trusted.
1919, B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols, :All things considered, we advise the male reader to keep his desires in check till he is at least twenty-five, and the female not to enter the pale of wedlock until she has attained the age of twenty.

The bounds of morality, good behaviour or judgment in civilized company, in the phrase beyond the pale.
(heraldiccharge) A vertical band down the middle of a shield.
(archaic) A territory or defensive area within a specific boundary or under a given jurisdiction.

(historical) The parts of Ireland under English jurisdiction.
(historical) The territory around Calais under English control (from the 14th to 16th centuries).

2009, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, Fourth Estate 2010, p. 402:He knows the fortifications â€“ crumbling â€“ and beyond the city walls the lands of the Pale, its woods, villages and marshes, its sluices, dykes and canals.
2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin 2012, p. 73:A low-lying, marshy enclave stretching eighteen miles along the coast and pushing some eight to ten miles inland, the Pale of Calais nestled between French Picardy to the west and, to the east, the imperial-dominated territories of Flanders.

To enclose with pales, or as if with pales; to encircle or encompass; to fence off.isle, which stands ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable and roaring waters. — Shakespeare.