pall
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /pɔːl/
  • (GA) IPA: /pɔl/, /pɑl/
Noun

pall (plural palls)

  1. Senses relating to cloth.
    1. (archaic, poetic) Fine cloth, especially purple cloth used for robes.
    2. A heavy cloth laid over a coffin or tomb; a shroud laid over a corpse.
      • 1941, Rebecca West, “Dalmatia”, in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: The Record of a Journey through Yugoslavia in 1937, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1946, OCLC 717735276 ↗, page 153 ↗:
        After his death he [{{w
    3. (Christianity) A piece of cardboard, covered with linen and embroidered on one side, used to cover the chalice during the Eucharist.
    4. (Christianity, obsolete) A cloth used for various purposes on the altar in a church, such as a corporal or frontal.
  2. Senses relating to clothing.
    1. (archaic) An outer garment; a cloak, mantle, or robe.
      • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938 ↗, book II, canto IX, stanza 37, page 317 ↗:
        In a long purple pall, whose ſkirt with gold, / Was fretted all about, ſhe was arayd, {{...}
      • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: Printed [by Richard Field] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 932900760 ↗, book V, stanza 24, page 246 ↗:
        His [Hercules#English|Hercules's] Lyons skin chaungd to a pall of gold, / In which forgetting warres, he onely ioyed / In combats of ſweet loue, and with his miſtreſſe toyed.
    2. (figuratively) Something that covers or surrounds like a cloak; in particular, a cloud of dust, smoke, etc., or a feeling of fear or gloom.
      The early election results cast a pall over what was supposed to be a celebration.
      A pall came over the crowd when the fourth goal was scored.
    3. (Christianity) Especially in Roman Catholicism: a pallium.
    4. (heraldic charge) A charge representing an archbishop's pallium, having the form of the letter Y charged with crosses.
      Synonyms: cross-pall, pairle
Related terms Translations Translations Verb

pall (palls, present participle palling; past and past participle palled)

  1. (transitive) To cloak or cover with, or as if with, a pall.
    • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene v], lines 48–49, page 134 ↗, column 2:
      Come, thick Night, / And pall thee in the dunneſt ſmoake of Hell, / That my keene Knife ſee not the Wound it makes, / Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke, / To cry, hold, hold.
Verb

pall (palls, present participle palling; past and past participle palled)

  1. (transitive) To make vapid or insipid; to make lifeless or spiritless; to dull, to weaken.
  2. (intransitive) To become dull, insipid, tasteless, or vapid; to lose life, spirit, strength, or taste.
    The liquor palls.
    • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., OCLC 18478577 ↗; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, volume 1, number 11, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, February 1927, OCLC 988016180 ↗, book I, page 1006 ↗, column 1:
      We are all becoming accustomed to adventure. It is beginning to pall on us. We suffered no casualties and there was no illness.
Noun

pall (plural palls)

  1. (obsolete, rare) A feeling of nausea caused by disgust or overindulgence.



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