Word.ws English Dictionary

beyond the pale

Syllables: be·yond the paleUK/bɪˌjɒnd ðə ˈpeɪl/US/biˌ(j)ɑnd ðə ˈpeɪl/

beyond the pale prepositional phrase: of a person or their behaviour: outside the bounds of what is acceptable, or regarded as good judgment, morality, ethics, etc.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Of a person or their behaviour: outside the bounds of what is acceptable, or regarded as good judgment, morality, ethics, etc.
    • The very date which put them beyond the pale as belligerents was that which they seem to have chosen in order to prove what active and valiant soldiers they still remained.1900, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, page 409
    • Socially Mack and the boys were beyond the pale. Sam Malloy didn't speak to them as they went by the boiler. They drew into themselves and no one could foresee how they would come out of the cloud. For there are two possible reactions to social ostracism - either a man emerges determined to be...1945, John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, page 105
    Antonyms:
    within the pale
  2. Used other than as an idiom; generally followed by of: beyond the extent or limits.
    • Are they to be placed like devils beyond the pale of all human charities, and to be denied all kindly and benevolent offices?1812, Edward William Grinfield, The Nature and Extent of the Christian Dispensation with Reference to the Salvability of the Heathen, page 35
    • […]but he was essentially a lone traveller in areas beyond the pale of human society.2000, Raechelle Rubinstein, Beyond the Realm of the Senses: The Balinese Ritual of Kakawin Composition, page 103
    Antonyms:
    within the pale

Examples of beyond the pale in a sentence

  • Socially Mack and the boys were beyond the pale.1945, John Steinbeck, Cannery Row, page 105:
  • For most British voters – the people whom Labour claimed to represent – Labour was, quite simply, ‘beyond the pale’.2012, Patricia Hewitt, “3: The Start of Labour's Long March:1985-1992”, in Dennis Kavanagh, editor, Philip Gould: An Unfinished Life, page...
  • That they had evinced no desire to be Britons, and had made manifest their aversion by holding tenaciously to their Catholicism, only confirmed the wisdom of their consignment beyond the pale.2012, David M. Emmons, Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West, 1845-1910, page 4:
  • In addition it calls into question the common assumption that the holocaust destroyed British anti-Semitism or at least pushed it beyond the pale of respectability.2012, Tony Kushner, Kenneth Lunn, The Politics of Marginality: Race, the Radical Right and Minorities in Twentieth Century Britain, page...

Synonyms of beyond the pale

Antonyms

Origin of beyond the pale

From beyond + the + pale (“wooden stake, picket; fence made from wooden stakes, palisade; limit, boundary”). The phrase is often connected either to the Pale of Settlement, the part of the Russian Empire where Jews were permitted to settle, or to the English Pale, the part of Ireland that was directly subject to the English Crown in the Late Middle Ages. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, however, there is no evidence for either of these theories. The phrase is first attested in 1720, after the English Pale had ceased to exist and before the Pale of Settlement had been established.

Words that rhyme with beyond the pale

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about beyond the pale

What does beyond the pale mean?
Beyond the pale means of a person or their behaviour: outside the bounds of what is acceptable, or regarded as good judgment, morality, ethics, etc.
How do you use beyond the pale in a sentence?
Socially Mack and the boys were beyond the pale.
What part of speech is beyond the pale?
Beyond the pale is a prepositional phrase.
How do you pronounce beyond the pale?
Beyond the pale is pronounced /bɪˌjɒnd ðə ˈpeɪl/ (UK).

Words near beyond the pale in the dictionary

  1. beyond someone's scope
  2. beyond the beyonds
  3. beyond the black stump
  4. beyond the call of duty
  5. beyond the grave
  6. beyond the pale
  7. beyond the shadow of a doubt
  8. beyond words
  9. beyonde
  10. beyondish
  11. beyondness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beyond the pale (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-beyond the pale.ogg.

Cite this entry: “beyond the pale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beyond_the_pale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.