pale

«pale» in Mova's school dictionary: Pale describes a face or skin that has less colour than… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (pale, paler, palest); verb (pale, pales, paled, paling); noun (a pale — rare; beyond the pale)

meaning for a pupil

1) Pale describes a face or skin that has less colour than usual, often because someone is ill, scared or shocked. tree →

2) A pale colour is light and soft, not strong or dark, like pale blue. tree →

3) Pale light is weak, not bright. tree →

4) To pale means to become pale, or to seem less important next to something else. tree →

5) Beyond the pale means very bad or not acceptable. tree →

sense in the lessons

In health and first aid: a pale, sweaty, cold person may be in shock or about to faint; sit them down and get help. In art lessons: mixing white makes paler shades; pale and dark colours. In stories, «she went pale» tells the reader a character is frightened or shocked. Phrases: «go pale», «turn pale», «pale blue», «pale as a ghost», «pale in comparison».

examples

• You look pale; are you feeling all right? tree →
• He went pale when he saw the spider. tree →
• She painted her room pale yellow. tree →
• The pale moon rose over the hills. tree →
• Add white paint to make the colour paler. tree →
• After the illness she was thin and pale. tree →
• My drawing pales in comparison to yours. tree →
• Kicking the dog was beyond the pale. tree →
• ‘Sylvia’s dear face is pale to-day. tree →

note

Comparatives: «paler, palest». Homophone: «pail» (a bucket), which sounds exactly the same. Pale is often used with colours: «pale green» (light green). Opposite: «dark» for colours, «rosy» or «flushed» for faces.

In the corpora

• Pale pigs can get sunburnt like fair-skinned people, so farmers sometimes give them shade or sun cream.
• Many moths rest still on trees looking like bark, and when factory soot darkened trees, dark moths survived better than pale ones.
• «Then it ought to be Number One,» says Alice — and the King turns pale and shuts his book.
• «But to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away.
• Tea's colour substances change in acid: lemon makes tea paler, and baking soda makes it darker.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «pale» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.