impale

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to pierce something with a long, sharp object so that it is fixed or held on the point

   She carefully impaled each piece of fruit on a wooden skewer.

2. 2
   verb

   to pierce a person or animal with a stake, spear, or similar weapon, often killing them

   The charging animal was impaled on the hunter's spear.

3. 3
   verb

   in heraldry, to display two coats of arms side by side on one shield

   The marriage arms impale the two families' coats on a single shield.

Simplified etymology

Impale ultimately derives from Latin palus, “stake,” the source of pale in its sense of a stake or boundary. When first recorded in the mid-16th century, it meant “surround with a pale” or “fortify”; the sense “thrust through with a stake” appeared in the late 17th century.

From Middle French empaler and Medieval Latin impalare, formed from Latin in- ('in, upon') and palus ('stake'). The literal image is of putting something onto a sharpened stake; the specialized heraldic sense developed from placing two armorial designs together on one shield.

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External links

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