pall

noun

1. (archaic, poetic)Senses relating to cloth.
2. Senses relating to cloth.

   “After his death he [Diocletian] remained corporeally in possession of the palace, his tomb resting in the centre of the mausoleum. Thirty years or so later, a woman was put to death for stealing the purple pall from his sarcophagus, a strange, crazy crime, […]”

3. Senses relating to cloth.
4. (obsolete)Senses relating to cloth.
5. (archaic)Senses relating to clothing.

   “In a long purple pall, whose ſkirt with gold, / Was fretted all about, ſhe was arayd, […]”

   “His [Hercules's] Lyons skin chaungd to a pall of gold, / In which forgetting warres, he onely ioyed / In combats of ſweet loue, and with his miſtreſſe toyed.”

6. (figuratively)Senses relating to clothing.

   “The early election results cast a pall over what was supposed to be a celebration.”

   “A pall came over the crowd when the fourth goal was scored.”

   “The smoke-pall of industrial Lancashire hung over the landscape; perhaps slagscape would be a more fitting term. The general prospect was a succession of chimney-stacks, factories, pit-heads, slagheaps, junctions, sidings and coal wagons.”

   “Night has spread her pall once more, And the prisoner still is free: Open is his dungeon door, Useless now his dungeon key!”

   “[…]and the pillar of smoke which had recently begun to dissipate, as many of the fires amidships had been smothered by the onrushing water, was replaced by a vast mushroom cloud of steam, smoke, flame, and debris as the magazines detonated. In the pall of this apocalyptic destruction, the U.S. fleet takes stock.”

7. Senses relating to clothing.

   “Or it might be a magnificent pall, in the days in which this garment had lost its primitive character, that taxed the skill and the patience of the fair needlewoman. It was about the year a.d. 601 that Pope Gregory [I] sent two archbishop's palls into England; the one for London, which see was afterwards removed to Canterbury, and the other to York.”

8. Senses relating to clothing.

   “The flag of South Africa has a green pall”

9. (obsolete, rare)A feeling of nausea caused by disgust or overindulgence.

   “Tho the Impatience of abſtaining be greater; the Pleaſure of Indulgence is really leſs. The Palls or Nauseatings which continually intervene, are of the worſt and moſt hateful kind of Senſation. Hardly is there any thing taſted which is wholly free from this ill reliſh of a ſurfeited Senſe and ruin'd Appetite.”

10. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of pawl.

verb

1. (transitive)To cloak or cover with, or as if with, a pall.

   “Come, thick Night, / And pall thee in the dunneſt ſmoake of Hell, / That my keene Knife ſee not the Wound it makes, / Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke, / To cry, hold, hold.”

2. (transitive)To make vapid or insipid; to make lifeless or spiritless; to dull, to weaken.

   “[…] Reaſon and Reflection, which by repreſenting perpetually to the mind of Man the meanneſs of all ſenſual Gratifications, do, in great meaſure, blunt the edge of his keeneſt Deſires, and pall all his Enjoyments.”

3. (intransitive)To become dull, insipid, tasteless, or vapid; to lose life, spirit, strength, or taste.

   “The liquor palls.”

   “[T]he ale and byere haue palled, and were nought, by cause such ale and biere hathe taken wynde in spurgyng.”

   “Beauty ſoon grows familiar to the lover, / Fades in the eye, and palls upon the ſenſe.”

   “He interests himself in nothing: he scarcely cares to go beyond the garden-gate. Even Captain Glanders and Captain Strong pall upon him […]”

   “We are all becoming accustomed to adventure. It is beginning to pall on us. We suffered no casualties and there was no illness.”

4. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of pawl.

name

1. A surname.