Word.ws English Dictionary

palterly

palterly adjective: mean; paltry.

Adjective

palterly (comparative more palterly, superlative most palterly)

  1. (obsolete) Mean; paltry.

Forms of palterly

comparativemore palterly
superlativemost palterly
alternative formpaulterly

Origin of palterly

From *palter (“a rag, worthless thing”), from Middle Low German palter (“rag, cloth”). More at paltry.

Questions about palterly

What does palterly mean?
Palterly means mean; paltry.
What part of speech is palterly?
Palterly is an adjective.

Words near palterly in the dictionary

  1. palterer
  2. palterers
  3. palterey
  4. paltering
  5. palterings
  6. palterly
  7. palters
  8. Palterton
  9. paltik
  10. paltiks
  11. Paltit

Source and license

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