pallor

English

Alternative forms

• pallour (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English pallour, from Old French palor (“paleness, pallor”), from Latin pallor, from palleō (“look pale, blanch”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpælɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpælə/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ælə(ɹ)

Noun

pallor (countable and uncountable, plural pallors)

1. Unnatural paleness, especially as a sign of sickness or distress.

   Synonyms: pallidity, wanness

   pallor of the complexion

   • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Last Night”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 76:

     ‘Sir,’ said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled pallor, ‘that thing was not my master, and there’s the truth. My master’—here he looked round him and began to whisper—‘is a tall fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf.’

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, “Jonathan Harker’s Journal—continued”, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC, chapter II, page 20:

     For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

   • 1900 April, Willa Sibert Cather, “Eric Hermannson’s Soul”, in The Cosmopolitan, volume XXVIII, number 6, New York, N.Y.: John Brisben Walker, →OCLC, page 633:

     Over those seamed cheeks there was a certain pallor, a grayness caught from many a vigil

   • 2019 May 16, Erik Adams, “A potent satire has its wings clipped in Catch-22”, in The A.V. Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 1 September 2019:

     Catch-22 is defined by the sickly pallor of its visual palette (a jaundiced tint that at least goes with Yossarian’s point of view and phony liver pains) and the way it makes the slog of its characters’ deployment a little too literal.

Related terms

English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *pelH- (0 c, 14 e)

Translations

paleness; want of color; pallidity

• Bulgarian: бледност f (blednost)
• Catalan: pal·lidesa f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 面色蒼白／面色苍白 (miànsè cāngbái)

• Dutch: bleekheid (nl)
• Finnish: kalpeus (fi)
• French: pâleur (fr) f
• German: Blässe (de) f
• Greek: ωχρότητα (el) f (ochrótita)

  Ancient: ὠχρότης f (ōkhrótēs), ὦχρος m (ôkhros)

• Hungarian: sápadtság (hu)
• Icelandic: fölvi m
• Italian: pallore (it), pallidità f
• Latin: pallor m
• Latvian: bālums m
• Persian: رنگ‌پریدگی (fa) (rang-paridegi), زردی (fa) (zardi)
• Polish: bladość (pl) f
• Portuguese: palidez (pt) f
• Romanian: paliditate (ro) f, gălbinare (ro) f
• Russian: бле́дность (ru) f (blédnostʹ)
• Spanish: palidez (es) f

Further reading

• pallor on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “pallor, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2005.
• “pallor”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “pallor”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Latin

Etymology

From palleō (“I am or look pale, blanch”) +‎ -or, from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“gray”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈpal.lor/, [ˈpälːʲɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpal.lor/, [ˈpälːor]

Noun

pallor m (genitive pallōris); third declension

1. a pale color, paleness, wanness, pallor
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.499:

     Haec effāta silet, pallor simul occupat ōra.

     Having spoken these [words], [Dido] falls silent, while pallor overspreads her face.
     (Although Dido appeared hopeful in line 477, now her pallid complexion portends her suicidal intent.)

   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 4.541:

     pallor abit, subitāsque vident in corpore vīrēs

     His pallor departs, and they see sudden vigor in his body.
     (Triptolemus, child of Celeus and Metanira, is healed by the goddess Ceres.)

2. (by extension) mustiness, moldiness, mildew
3. (by extension) dimness, faintness
4. (by extension) a disagreeable color or shape, unsightliness
5. (figuratively) alarm, terror

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pallor	pallōrēs
Genitive	pallōris	pallōrum
Dative	pallōrī	pallōribus
Accusative	pallōrem	pallōrēs
Ablative	pallōre	pallōribus
Vocative	pallor	pallōrēs

Synonyms

• (mildew): rōbīgō
• (paleness): aurūgō

Related terms

• pallēns
• palleō
• pallēscō
• pallidulus
• pallidus

Descendants

• → English: pallor
• French: pâleur
• Galician: balor
• Italian: pallore
• Occitan: pallor
• Portuguese: bolor, palor
• Spanish: palor

References

• “pallor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pallor”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• pallor in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• pallor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “pallor”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “pallor”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray