Word.ws English Dictionary

paly

/ˈpeɪli/

paly adjective: palewise; vertically striped.

Adjective (1)

paly (not comparable)

  1. Palewise; vertically striped.

Adjective (2)

paly (comparative more paly, superlative most paly)

  1. (obsolete) Pale; lacking colour.
    • Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
      With twenty thousand kisses,1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes,
      With that deep insight which detects
      O'erhung with paly locks of goldc. 1857-1873, John Greenleaf Whittier, "The Reformer"

Forms of paly

comparativemore paly
superlativemost paly

Origin of paly

Compare French palé. See pale (“a stake”).

From pale + -y.

Words formed from paly

Words that rhyme with paly

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about paly

What does paly mean?
Paly means palewise; vertically striped.
What part of speech is paly?
Paly is an adjective.
How do you pronounce paly?
Paly is pronounced /ˈpeɪli/.

Words near paly in the dictionary

  1. palustrous
  2. Paluxy Man
  3. Palwal
  4. palwar
  5. palwars
  6. paly
  7. palygorskite
  8. palygorskites
  9. palygorskitic
  10. palymitoylated
  11. palynivore

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paly (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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