n. 1. A cover for a coffin, bier, or tomb, often made of black, purple, or white velvet. 2. A coffin, especially one being carried to a grave or tomb. 3. a. A covering that darkens or obscures: a pall of smoke over the city. b. A gloomy effect or atmosphere: "A pall of depressed indifference hung over Petrograd during February and March 1916" (W. Bruce Lincoln). 4. Ecclesiastical a. A linen cloth or a square of cardboard faced with cloth used to cover the chalice. b. See pallium. tr.v. palled, pall·ing, palls To cover with or as if with a pall. [Middle English pal, from Old English pæll, cloak, covering, from Latin pallium.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
n. A friend; a chum. intr.v. palled, pal·ling, pals To associate as friends or chums. Often used with around. [Romani phral, phal, from Sanskrit bhrātā, bhrātr-, brother; see bhrāter- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] Word History: The word pal comes from the Indic language of the Romani people. First recorded in English in the second half of the 1700s, pal was borrowed from a Romani word meaning "brother, comrade," which occurs as phal in the Romani spoken in England and phral in the Romani spoken in continental Europe. The Romani speak an Indic language because they originally migrated to Europe from the border region between Iran and India. In other Indic languages we find related words meaning "brother," such as Hindu and Urdu bhāī, and they all come from Sanskrit bhrātā, which in turn traces its ancestry to the same Indo-European word that our word brother does. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.