Paling
name, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A pointed stick used to make a fence.
"The boys continued hitting the tennis ball with pailings snatched from a fence […]"
- 2 a fence made of upright pickets wordnet
- 3 A fence made of palings.
"1789, Alderman Le Mesurier), addressing the House of Commons, in The Parliamentary Register,ᴴᵃⁿˢᵃʳᵈ London: John Debrett, Volume 26, p. 172, Gentlemen must have observed that many of the nurserymen’s plantations were wide and extensive, some of them covering several acres; and that their palings and fences were for the most part low, and might be so weak and out of repair, as to afford a very insufficient security against the inroads of robbers and spoilers."
- 4 A fence made of galvanized sheeting. Caribbean
"He worked badly. He had to paint a large sign on a corrugated iron paling. Doing letters on a corrugated surface was bad enough; to paint a cow and a gate, as he had to, was maddening."
- 1 present participle and gerund of pale form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"The boys continued hitting the tennis ball with pailings snatched from a fence […]"
Etymology
From pale + -ing.
From Middle English palyng, palynge, equivalent to pale + -ing.
Variant of Palin.
Related phrases
More for "paling"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.