within the pale
within the pale prepositional phrase: within the boundaries, either physical or metaphorical; especially within the limits of acceptable behavior.
Prepositional phrase
- Within the boundaries, either physical or metaphorical; especially within the limits of acceptable behavior.
- That settlement has to be a return to her pre-1967 boundaries. Precisely because Israel is by no means forced to make so generous a move, the international support (even love) this would generate would secure her future permanently. It would bring her back within the pale.2006 July 20, Matthew Parris, “Two reasons why I cannot bring myself to write about the Israel problem”, in Times Online
Origin of within the pale
The phrase within the pale, meaning to stay within the limits of law or decency, was in use by the mid-17th century. The phrase is a reference to the general sense of boundary, not to any of the particular places, such as the English pale in Ireland, which bore that name, or the Pale of Settlement, in Imperial Russia. Out of the many districts established by England (Cork, Dublin, Drogheda, Waterford, and Wexford), only a select few followed the laws established by England, hence "within the pale" and beyond the pale.
Questions about within the pale
- What does within the pale mean?
- Within the pale means within the boundaries, either physical or metaphorical; especially within the limits of acceptable behavior.
- What part of speech is within the pale?
- Within the pale is a prepositional phrase.
Words near within the pale in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: within 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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Cite this entry: “within the pale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/within_the_pale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.