beyond the pale

Cultural  

1. Totally unacceptable: “His business practices have always been questionable, but this last takeover was beyond the pale.” The Pale in Ireland was a territorial limit beyond which English rule did not extend.

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beyond the pale Idioms  

1. Outside the bounds of morality, good behavior or judgment; unacceptable. For example, She thought taking the boys to a topless show was beyond the pale. The noun pale, from the Latin palum, meant “a stake for fences” or “a fence made from such stakes.” By extension it came to be used for an area confined by a fence and for any boundary, limit, or restriction, both of these meanings dating from the late 1300s. The pale referred to in the idiom is usually taken to mean the English Pale, the part of Ireland under English rule, and therefore, as perceived by its rulers, within the bounds of civilization.

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Example Sentences

He said: "We have had ongoing problems for a very long time with CalMac but this is absolutely beyond the pale. It's outrageous."

From BBC

Any time you have hardcore supporters of an individual or ideology, there is a small percentage that will be willing to go beyond the pale.

From Salon

That kind of rebuff is unlikely, however, because it’s hard to imagine Bowser and the council approving a budget so beyond the pale of fiscal sanity that congressional Democrats would join a Republican phalanx — as they did with the criminal code — to deliver another D.C. smackdown.

From Washington Post

In May, after six months of research, Biden unveiled the descriptor “ultra MAGA” to attack the pro-Trump “Make America Great Again” portion of the Republican Party, which he described as “mean-spirited,” “extreme” and “beyond the pale.”

From Washington Post

“It casts one set of people as heroes and saviors and another set of people as beyond the pale and evil. It’s good and evil rhetoric, and once you see your opponents as evil or the belligerent side in a war, that seems to legitimize treating them in ways we’d otherwise find very objectionable.”

From Washington Post

Related Words

• banned
• outlawed
• prohibited
• tabu
• unthinkable