No bloodless malady empales their face. G. Fletcher. [ 1913 Webster ]

All that dwell near enemies empale villages, to save themselves from surprise. Sir W. Raleigh. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To inclose; to surround. See Impale. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To put to death by thrusting a sharpened stake through the body. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. (Her.) Same as Impale. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A putting to death by thrusting a sharpened stake through the body. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (Her.) Same as Impalement. [ 1913 Webster ]

Then with what life remains, impaled, and left
To writhe at leisure round the bloody stake. Addison. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To inclose, as with pales or stakes; to surround. [ 1913 Webster ]

Impale him with your weapons round about. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (Her.) To join, as two coats of arms on one shield, palewise; hence, to join in honorable mention. [ 1913 Webster ]

Ordered the admission of St. Patrick to the same to be matched and impaled with the blessed Virgin in the honor thereof. Fuller. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. An inclosing by stakes or pales, or the space so inclosed. H. Brooke. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. That which hedges in; inclosure. [ R. ] Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. (Her.) The division of a shield palewise, or by a vertical line, esp. for the purpose of putting side by side the arms of husband and wife. See Impale, 3. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To interweave or interlace. [ R. ] Brende. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. Wanting in color; not ruddy; dusky white; pallid; wan; as, a pale face; a pale red; a pale blue. “Pale as a forpined ghost.” Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

Speechless he stood and pale. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

They are not of complexion red or pale. T. Randolph. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Not bright or brilliant; of a faint luster or hue; dim; as, the pale light of the moon. [ 1913 Webster ]

The night, methinks, is but the daylight sick;
It looks a little paler. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Pale is often used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, pale-colored, pale-eyed, pale-faced, pale-looking, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

Apt to pale at a trodden worm. Mrs. Browning. [ 1913 Webster ]

The glowworm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Deer creep through when a pale tumbles down. Mortimer. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. That which incloses or fences in; a boundary; a limit; a fence; a palisade. “Within one pale or hedge.” Robynson (More's Utopia). [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A space or field having bounds or limits; a limited region or place; an inclosure; -- often used figuratively. “To walk the studious cloister's pale.” Milton. “Out of the pale of civilization.” Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. Hence: A region within specified bounds, whether or not enclosed or demarcated. [ PJC ]

5. A stripe or band, as on a garment. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. (Her.) One of the greater ordinaries, being a broad perpendicular stripe in an escutcheon, equally distant from the two edges, and occupying one third of it. [ 1913 Webster ]

7. A cheese scoop. Simmonds. [ 1913 Webster ]

8. (Shipbuilding) A shore for bracing a timber before it is fastened. [ 1913 Webster ]

English pale,
Irish pale (Hist.), the limits or territory in Eastern Ireland within which alone the English conquerors of Ireland held dominion for a long period after their invasion of the country by Henry II in 1172. See note, below. --
beyond the pale outside the limits of what is allowed or proper; also, outside the limits within which one is protected. Spencer. [ 1913 Webster +PJC ]

The English Pale. That part of Ireland in which English law was acknowledged, and within which the dominion of the English was restricted, for some centuries after the conquests of Henry II. John distributed the part of Ireland then subject to England into 12 counties palatine, and this region became subsequently known as the Pale, but the limits varied at different times. [ Century Dict., 1906 ]

[ Your isle, which stands ] ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable and roaring waters. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. (Bot.) (a) The interior chaff or husk of grasses. (b) One of the chaffy scales or bractlets growing on the receptacle of many compound flowers, as the Coreopsis, the sunflower, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Zool.) A pendulous process of the skin on the throat of a bird, as in the turkey; a dewlap. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Inclosed with a paling. “A paled green.” Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ]

The blood the virgin's cheek forsook;
A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look. Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. The study of ancient inscriptions and modes of writing; the art or science of deciphering ancient writings, and determining their origin, period, etc., from external characters; diplomatics. [ 1913 Webster ]