gally
gally is the archaic form of galley.
gally is the diminutive of gal.
Meaning of galley
Noun
galley (plural galleys or (obsolete) gallies)
- A long, slender ship propelled primarily by oars, whether having masts and sails or not; usually a rowed warship used in the Mediterranean from the 16th century until the modern era.
- A light, open boat used on the Thames by customhouse officers, press gangs, and also for pleasure.
- One of the small boats carried by a man-of-war.
- The cookroom or kitchen and cooking apparatus of a vessel or aircraft; sometimes on merchant vessels called the caboose.
- An oblong oven or muffle with a battery of retorts; a gallery furnace.
- An oblong tray of wood or brass, with upright sides, for holding type which has been set, or is to be made up, etc.
- It was very nerve-racking. When I was finally able to write the story, I wrote it at the typewriter and never reread it until I had to edit the typos on the printer's galleys for the publication of the book.1976 April 26, Jil Clark, Julia Penelope, Susan Wolfe, “The Politics of Language”, in Gay Community News, page 8
Meaning of gal
Noun (1)
gal (plural gals)
Noun (2)
gal (plural gals, symbol Gal)
- A galileo (unit of acceleration).
Adjective
gally (comparative more gally, superlative most gally)
Verb
gally (third-person singular simple present gallies, present participle gallying, simple past and past participle gallied)
Synonyms of gally
Forms of gally
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | gallies |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more gally |
| superlative | most gally |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | gallies |
| present participle | gallying |
| past participle | gallied |
| past | gallied |
Origin of gally
From Middle English gally, from Old English gealliġ (“sour, sharp, bitter, sad”), equivalent to gall + -y.
See gallow (transitive verb).
From gal + -y.
Words formed from gally
Questions about gally
- What does gally mean?
- Gally means characterised by or resembling gall; bitter.
- What is gally the archaic form of?
- Gally is the archaic form of galley.
- What part of speech is gally?
- Gally can be an adjective or a verb.
Words near gally in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gally (page history and authors); galley (page history and authors); gal (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:
Cite this entry: “gally.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gally. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
