pallor

American  

[pal-er] / ˈpæl ər /

noun

• pallors
  plural

1. unusual or extreme paleness, as from fear, ill health, or death; wanness.

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pallor British  

/ ˈpælə /

noun

1. a pale condition, esp when unnatural

   fear gave his face a deathly pallor

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pallors
  plural

Etymology

Origin of pallor

1650–60; < Latin: paleness, equivalent to pall ( ēre ) to be pale + -or -or ¹

Explanation

When you’ve got the flu, that pale, sickly color of your skin is called a pallor. Other causes of pallor include shock, stress, or 10 days spent indoors trying to beat your new video game. Pallor comes from the Latin word pallere, which just means to “be pale.” That’s easy enough to remember, right? Pallor, pale. Don’t make yourself sick trying to memorize it, or you might get an unhealthy pallor from the strain.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pallor pallors

If you know anything about Burton’s movies, you know that they tend to feature characters who embody all the qualities of a sickly Victorian-era child: waifish, sunken doe-eye and gaunt faces with a deathlike pallor.

From Salon ● Sep. 15, 2024

Even miles outside the perimeter, many businesses in Maine's south opted for a self-imposed shutdown, casting an eerie pallor over the state.

From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2023

Here, too, the mood couldn’t have been more different from the year prior, when the slap cast a pallor on the celebration.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 13, 2023

But rather than proclaim sanctioned facts — the static material of official history — these objects, like the house, turn inward, concealing fragments of Lima’s collective memory beneath a pallor of white plaster.

From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2022

Harry could see him now, see the red eyes, the flattened, serpentine face, the pallor of him gleaming slightly in the semidarkness.

From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling

The sight of his scared face, his starts and pallors and sudden hearkenings, unstrung me; and when he dropped and broke a dish, I fairly leaped out of my seat.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI by Robert Louis Stevenson

Life has the same pallors and glooms; we are weary of ourselves and of others, we have the sensation of defeat upon defeat, of hopeless struggles, of mortal languors that no faith can lift.

From A Daughter of Fife by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

The paper words seem to bedeck with blossom these shores of pestilence, this Valley of Death, with their countless pallors of barren lies.

From Under Fire: the story of a squad by Fitzwater Wray

The sight of his scared face, his starts and pallors and sudden harkenings, unstrung me; and when he dropped and broke a dish, I fairly leaped out of my seat.

From Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson

She seemed the vividest thing, suddenly cleaving the pallors and uncertainties of reeds and water and flecked northern sky.

From The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim