Pall

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /pɔːl/
• US IPA: /pÉ”l/, /pÉ‘l/
• Rhymes: -ɔːl

Old English pæll, from Latin pallium ("cloak, covering").

Full definition of pall

Noun

1. (archaic) Fine cloth, especially purple cloth used for robes.
2. (Christianity) A cloth used for various purposes on the altar in a church.
3. (Christianity) A piece of cardboard, covered with linen and embroidered on one side, used to cover the chalice.
4. (Christianity) A pallium (woollen vestment in Roman Catholicism).
• FullerAbout this time Pope Gregory sent two archbishop's palls into England, — the one for London, the other for York.
5. (heraldiccharge) A figure resembling the Roman Catholic pallium, or pall, and having the form of the letter Y.
6. A heavy canvas, especially one laid over a coffin or tomb.
• 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate (2006), page 150:Thirty years or so later, a woman was put to death for stealing the purple pall from his sarcophagus, a strange, crazy crime, ...
7. An outer garment; a cloak or mantle.
• ShakespeareHis lion's skin changed to a pall of gold.
8. (obsolete) nausea

Derived terms

• cast a pall
• pallbearer
• tarpaulin

Verb

1. To cloak.Lady Macbeth: 'Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell' (Macbeth Act I Scene v lines 48–9).

Aphetism from appall.

Verb

1. (transitive) To make vapid or insipid; to make lifeless or spiritless; to dull; to weaken.
• AtterburyReason and reflection ... pall all his enjoyments.
2. (intransitive) To become vapid, tasteless, dull, or insipid; to lose strength, life, spirit, or taste.The liquor palls.
• AddisonBeauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
  Fades in the eye, and palls upon the sense.
• 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot (novel) Chapter VIWe are all becoming accustomed to adventure. It is beginning to pall on us. We suffered no casualties and there was no illness.----