paling

See also: Paling

English

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈpeɪlɪŋ/
Rhymes: -eɪlɪŋ

Etymology 1

From pale +‎ -ing.

Verb

paling

present participle and gerund of pale

Etymology 2

From Middle English palyng, palynge, equivalent to pale +‎ -ing.

Noun

paling (plural palings)

A pointed stick used to make a fence.
- 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 20, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings‎, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 117:
  The boys continued hitting the tennis ball with pailings snatched from a fence […]
- 1997, Richard Flanagan, chapter 6, in The Sound of One Hand Clapping, New York: Grove Press, published 2014:
  The smell of the damp eucalypt palings that clad the walls exhaling their aromatic resin into the house, mingling with the fragrance of the myrtle burning in the fireplace.
A fence made of palings.
- 1789, Alderman Le Mesurier^{John Le Mesurier (Alderney)}, addressing the House of Commons, in The Parliamentary Register, London: John Debrett, Volume 26, p. 172,
  Gentlemen must have observed that many of the nurserymen’s plantations were wide and extensive, some of them covering several acres; and that their palings and fences were for the most part low, and might be so weak and out of repair, as to afford a very insufficient security against the inroads of robbers and spoilers.
- 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 12, in Pride and Prejudice: , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: for T Egerton, , →OCLC:
  The park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground.
- 1878, Henry James, An International Episode‎:
  The wide doors and windows of the restaurant stood open, beneath large awnings, to a wide pavement, where there were other plants in tubs, and rows of spreading trees, and beyond which there was a large shady square, without any palings, and with marble-paved walks.
(Caribbean) A fence made of galvanized sheeting.
- 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas‎, London: André Deutsch, Part One, Chapter 3, p. 118:
  He worked badly. He had to paint a large sign on a corrugated iron paling. Doing letters on a corrugated surface was bad enough; to paint a cow and a gate, as he had to, was maddening.

Alternative forms

pailing

Derived terms

paling board

Translations

stick

Bulgarian: кол (bg) m (kol)
Finnish: paalu (fi), aitapylväs
French: pieu (fr) m
Maori: kāwāwā, tīwatawata, wāwā
Occitan: pal (oc) m
Russian: кол (ru) m (kol)
Ukrainian: кіл (uk) m (kil), паля (uk) f (palja)

fence

Bulgarian: палисада f (palisada)
Catalan: palissada f, estacada (ca) f
Chinese:
Mandarin: 圍籬／围篱 (zh) (wéilí)
Finnish: paaluaita
Japanese: 柵 (ja) (さく, saku)
Occitan: palenc m, palenca f, palissada f, palencada f
Russian: частоко́л (ru) m (častokól)
Scottish Gaelic: callaid f
Ukrainian: частокіл (uk) m (častokil), палісад m (palisad)

References

^ Richard Allsopp and Jeannette Allsop (eds.) Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, University of the West Indies Press, 2003.

Anagrams

Galpin

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch paling, from Middle Dutch paeldinc, from Old Dutch *pathelink.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈpɑː.lɪŋ/
Audio (file)

Noun

paling (plural palings, diminutive palinkie)

eel

Synonyms

aal

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch palinc, padelinc, paeldinc, from Old Dutch paelding, paleding, palezinc. The original form seems to be *palathing (attested in the placename Palathingadīc) or, as some sources prefer, *pathaling. This has no cognates outside Dutch and probably goes back to a substrate language. As the oldest attestation is (latinised) palengus, one could alternatively see the -th- as excrescent and thus derived the word from Proto-West Germanic *pāl (“pole”) after the fish's shape. While this is less likely, the distinction sometimes made between aal (“juvenile eel”) and paling (“large, adult eel”) may indeed have been influenced by association with paal.