pale

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   lacking in vitality or interest or effectiveness

   a pale rendition of the aria

2. 2
   adj

   not full or rich

   high, pale, pure and lovely song

3. 3
   adj

   Light in color.

   I have pale yellow wallpaper.

4. 4
   adj

   Having a pallor (a light color, especially due to sickness, shock, fright etc.).

   His face turned pale after hearing about his mother's death.

5. 5
   adj

   Feeble, faint.

   He is but a pale shadow of his former self.

6. 6
   verb

   To turn pale; to lose colour.

   But a man— / Note men !—they are but women after all, / As women are but Auroras !—there are men / Born tender, apt to pale at a trodden worm, / Who paint for pastime, in their favourite dream, / Spruce auto-vestments flowered with crocus-flames / There are, too, who believe in hell and lie : […]

7. 7
   verb

   To become insignificant.

   (Although the conditions are rather different, the generosity of the offer certainly pales by comparison with the "Eurailpass" now available to tourists from North and South America at $125 (£44 13s.), which allows two months' unlimited first class travel throughout the railway systems of thirteen countries—[...].)

8. 8
   verb

   To make pale; to diminish the brightness of.

   The Glow-worme ſhowes the Matine to be neere, / And gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire : / Adue, adue, Hamlet : remember me.

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin palleō Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Latin -idus Latin pallidus Old French palebor. Middle English pale English pale From Middle English pale, from Old French pale, from Latin pallidus (“pale, pallid”), from palleō (“to be pale; to grow pale; to fade”), from Proto-Indo-European *pelito-, from *pelH- (“gray”). Doublet of pallid. Displaced native Old English blāc.