Word.ws English Dictionary

empale

UK/ɪmˈpeɪl/

empale is the obsolete form of impale.

Meaning of impale

Verb

impale (third-person singular simple present impales, present participle impaling, simple past and past participle impaled)

  1. (transitive) To pierce (something) with any long, pointed object.
  2. (transitive) To place two coats of arms side by side on the same shield (often those of two spouses upon marriage).
  3. (ambitransitive) To pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake.
  4. (ambitransitive) To enclose or fence with stakes.
    • [T]he Tovvne is impailed about halfe a mile compaſſe.1624, John Smith, “The Present Estate of Nevv-Plimoth”, in Iohn [i.e., John] Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: […], London: […] I[ohn] D[awson] and I[ohn]...
    Synonyms:
    pale, palisade, picket

Verb

empale (third-person singular simple present empales, present participle empaling, simple past and past participle empaled)

  1. (transitive) To make pale.
    • No bloodless malady empales their face.1610, Giles Fletcher, Christ's Triumph after Death

Forms of empale

third-person singular presentempales
present participleempaling
past participleempaled
pastempaled

Origin of empale

From em- + pale.

Words that rhyme with empale

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about empale

What does empale mean?
Empale means to make pale.
What is empale the obsolete form of?
Empale is the obsolete form of impale.
What part of speech is empale?
Empale is a verb.
How do you pronounce empale?
Empale is pronounced /ɪmˈpeɪl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of empale?
The past tense of empale is empaled.

Words near empale in the dictionary

  1. empaires
  2. empairing
  3. empairment
  4. empairs
  5. empaistic
  6. empale
  7. empaled
  8. empalement
  9. empalements
  10. empaler
  11. empalers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: empale (page history and authors); impale (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-impale.ogg.

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