pal

pal

1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Middle Persian.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Middle Persian terms

PIE word
*bʰréh₂tēr

Borrowed from Angloromani pal (“brother, friend”), from Romani phral (“brother”), from Sanskrit भ्रातृ (bhrātṛ, “brother”). Doublet of bhai, brother, bru, frater, friar, and vai.

• IPA^(key): /pæl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æl
• Homophone: pow (some accents)

pal (plural pals)

1. (colloquial) A friend, buddy, mate, cobber; someone to hang around with.

   Little Timmy's out playing with his pals.

2. (colloquial) An informal term of address, often used ironically in a hostile way.

   Don't you threaten me, pal – I'll report you to the police.

• See also Thesaurus:friend

• → Afrikaans: pêl

pal (third-person singular simple present pals, present participle palling, simple past and past participle palled)

1. Synonym of pal around.
   • 2012 November 26, Evan Schlansky, “Song Premiere: Ife Sanchez Mora, Hopeful Heart”, in American Songwriter‎^[1]:

     As an adult, she moved to New York and palled with trip-hop artist Tricky, who signed her to his own label.

   • 2017 August 21, Kyle Swenson, “The rise and fall of Miami’s ‘CEO of Purple Drank’”, in The Washington Post‎^[2]:

     There were pictures of Garcia flashing diamond mouth grills. Spewing out a Vesuvius-amount of smoke. Showing off a riot of body tattoos. Aiming guns. Palling with superstars like Lil Wayne and Chris Brown. […]

   • 2020 January 30, Ryan Mac, “How Tesla CEO Elon Musk Won His "Pedo Guy" Trial”, in BuzzFeed News‎^[3]:

     In the trial, they showed photographs and videos of Unsworth being congratulated by the UK prime minister, palling with Thai government officials, and smiling while Prince William pinned him with an MBE, an appointment to the Order of the British Empire.

   • 2022 March 4, Graham Rayman, “Roger Stone said he never saw NYPD cop bodyguard with a gun or shield — video shows otherwise”, in New York Daily News‎^[4]:

     Greco also palled with Stone’s friend “Manhattan Madam” Kristin Davis, who was convicted of prostitution-related activities and selling prescription drugs.

• pal care

pal (plural pals)

1. Alternative form of paul (“kind of tent”).

• ALP, APL, LPA, PLA, Pla, alp, lap

• palla, pel, pral, prala, pralla, pulu

Inherited from Romani phral. Cognate with English brother.

• IPA^(key): [ˈpʰæl], [pʰæɫ]

pal

1. brother

   Sa si pal te pen?

   How are your brother and sister?

2. friend

   Me lel boot pals.

   I have many friends.

• → English: pal
  • → Afrikaans: pêl

• “pal”, in Angloromani Dictionary‎^[5], The Manchester Romani Project, 2004-2006, page 25
• “pal”, in Angloromani Dictionary‎^[6], The Manchester Romani Project, 2004-2006, page 59

From a contraction of the preposition pa (“for”) + masculine singular article el (“the”).

pal m

1. for the

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.).

pal (definite accusative palı, plural pallar)

1. the green husk of a young hazelnut

• “pal” in Obastan.com.

From Proto-Uto-Aztecan *pa.

pál

1. water

• Katherine Siva Sauvel, Pamela Munro (1983) Chem'ivillu' (let's speak Cahuilla)

Inherited from Old Catalan pal, from Latin pālus (“stake, pole”), from Proto-Italic *pākslos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-slos, from *peh₂ǵ-.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈpal]
• Rhymes: -al

pal m (plural pals)

1. stake
2. pole
3. (field hockey or ice hockey) stick

   Synonym: estic

4. (heraldry) pale
5. (colloquial) bore, drag

   és un pal ― he's a drag

• “pal”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “pal”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “pal” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “pal” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From Middle Cornish pal, from Proto-Brythonic *pal; either from Latin pala, or from Proto-Celtic *kʷalos ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁- (“to turn”). Cognate with Breton pal and Welsh pâl. Related to palas (“to dig”) and palader (“drawbar”).

• IPA^(key): /paːl/

pal f (plural palyow)

1. spade

From Proto-Uto-Aztecan *pa. Cognate with Cahuilla pál, Luiseño paala, Tübatulabal bal, Northern Paiute paa, Comanche paa, Hopi paahu, Classical Nahuatl atl.

pál

1. water

• Jane H. Hill (2005) A Grammar of Cupeño

From Arabic بَال (bāl).

pal m

1. (always with a pronominal suffix) mind, attention, memory

• Borg, Alexander (2004) A Comparative Glossary of Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Arabic–English) (Handbook of Oriental Studies; I.70), Leiden and Boston: Brill, page 169

• IPA^(key): [ˈpal]
• Rhymes: -al

pal!

1. fire! (a signal to shoot)

pal

1. second-person singular imperative of pálit

• “pal”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “pal”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

From Middle French pal, from Latin pālus. Cognate with paal.

• IPA^(key): /pɑl/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑl

pal m (plural pallen, diminutive palletje n)

1. catch (mechanism which stops something from moving the wrong way)

pal

1. firm, firmly
2. (with a preposition or adverb) right, immediately

• lap

From Old French pal (12th c.), variant of pel, from Latin pālus (“stake, pole”). Doublet of pieu. The Trésor informatisé considers Old French pal a learned borrowing, but it might be a dialectal variant instead.

• IPA^(key): /pal/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophones: pale, pales, pals (general), pâle, pâles (chiefly France)

pal m (plural pals or (archaic) paux)

1. stake
2. pole
3. (heraldry) pale

• “pal”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

pal

1. (follows genitive case -ni) because, on account of

• IPA^(key): [ˈpal]
• Hyphenation: pal

From Dutch paal (“pole”), from Middle Dutch pâel, from Old Dutch pāl, from Latin pālus. Semantic loan from Dutch mijlpaal (“milestone”).

pal (plural pal-pal)

1. milestone, one of a series of numbered markers placed along a road at regular intervals, typically at the side of the road or in a median

   Synonyms: batu, mil, tonggak

pal (plural pal-pal)

1. nonstandard spelling of faal

• “pal” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

• IPA^(key): [pal]

pal

1. second-person singular imperative of paliś

• IPA^(key): /pɑːl/
• Rhymes: -al

pal ?

1. side

• IPA^(key): /pal/

• Audio (Languedoc):

  (file)

pal m (plural pals)

1. post, pole, stake
2. (nautical) mast

Borrowed from Latin pālus (“stake”), possibly through a Proto-West Germanic intermediate *pāl. Compare Old High German pfāl (German Pfahl), Old Dutch pāl (Dutch paal). Doublet of pǣl, from the variant Proto-West Germanic *pāli.

• IPA^(key): /pɑːl/

pāl m

1. stake

Strong a-stem:

• Middle English: pole, pol, poll, pall, paal
  • English: pole
  • Scots: pale, pall
  • Yola: pulmere

Borrowed from either Old Dutch pāl or Old High German pāl, from Proto-West Germanic *pāl, from Latin pālus (“stake, prop”), from Proto-Italic *pākslos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to attach”). Cognate to Old English pāl. Doublet of pēl.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpaːl/

pāl f

1. pole

• North Frisian: pul
• West Frisian: peal, poal

• Bremmer, Rolf H. (2009) An Introduction to Old Frisian: History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN

• (standard) IPA^(key): /pal/

-pal

1. of (genitive relation, also forms genitive pronouns)

   Ne pelu ipal ne takat

   The dog of the man → The man's dog.

   Ashan ini kal mupal

   Now this house is yours

2. for (benefactive relation)

   Tikpiat se mupal wan se nupal

   We have one for you and one for me

• The relational noun -pal is part of a restricted group of relationals that can be used without a possessive marker when it accompanies an explicit complement, thus acting like a preposition:

  Ne pelu pal ne takat

  The dog of the man → The man's dog.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpal/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: pal
• Homophones: Pal, PAL

Borrowed from Middle High German pfāl, phāl, from Old High German pfāl, phāl, from Proto-West Germanic *pāl, *pāli, from Latin pālus, from Proto-Italic *pākslos, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-slos, from *peh₂ǵ-.

pal m inan (diminutive palik)

1. stake (piece of wood)
2. (construction) pile (for the support of a building)

   Hypernym: słup

Imperative of palić.

pal

1. (military) shoot!

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

pal

1. second-person singular imperative of palić

• pal in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• pal in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from French pâle.

pal m or n (feminine singular pală, masculine plural pali, feminine and neuter plural pale)

1. pale

pal (plural paal)

1. knife

pal

1. (colloquial) contraction of para (“for”) + el (“the”)

• “pal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

• IPA^(key): [pal]

pal (nominative plural pals)

1. parent, father or mother

   Hyponyms: fat, hipal, jipal, mot