impale
Americanverb (used with object)
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to fasten, stick, or fix upon a sharpened stake or the like.
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to pierce with a sharpened stake thrust up through the body, as for torture or punishment.
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to fix upon, or pierce through with, anything pointed.
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to make helpless as if pierced through.
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Archaic. to enclose with or as if with pales or stakes; fence in; hem in.
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Heraldry.
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to marshal (two coats of arms, as the family arms of a husband and wife) on an escutcheon party per pale.
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(of a coat of arms) to be combined with (another coat of arms) in this way.
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verb
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to pierce with a sharp instrument
they impaled his severed head on a spear
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archaic to enclose with pales or fencing; fence in
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heraldry to charge (a shield) with two coats of arms placed side by side
Other Word Forms
- impalement noun
- impaler noun
Etymology
Origin of impale
1545–55; < Medieval Latin impālāre, equivalent to Latin im- im- 1 + pāl ( us ) pale 2 + -ā- thematic vowel + -re infinitive ending
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In it, a girl runs barefoot through the snow in a filmy nightie, blood in her tracks, until she falls into a pit and is impaled by sharpened sticks.
From New York Times
The Goteborg District Court said Fatosh Ibrahim “on two occasions published photographs of severed heads impaled on the fence” of a Raqqa roundabout, placed there by Islamic State group militants.
From Washington Times
Injured people staggering out of what was left of their homes, impaled with debris.
From Washington Post
“I thought we were in sync!” she tells him, and impales him on the tooth of a giant fossil.
From New York Times
He'd fallen from his house in Jamaica and was impaled on a metal spike.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
