palace
Americannoun
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palaces
plural
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the official residence of a king, queen, bishop, or other sovereign or exalted personage.
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a large and stately mansion or building.
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a large and usually ornate place for entertainment, exhibitions, etc.
noun
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the official residence of a reigning monarch or member of a royal family
Buckingham Palace
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the official residence of various high-ranking church dignitaries or members of the nobility, as of an archbishop
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a large and richly furnished building resembling a royal palace
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of palace
1200–50; Middle English < Medieval Latin palācium, spelling variant of palātium, Latin: generic use of Palātium name of the hill in Rome on which the emperor's palace was situated; replacing Middle English paleis < Old French ≪ Latin Palātium
Explanation
A palace is a beautiful, large house where someone important, like a king, lives. Have you ever seen Buckingham Palace? That's where the Queen of England lives, and it's an enormous, ornate, heavily guarded building, which is typical of palaces. Palaces are lavish and over-the-top, because they are usually the home of a ruler such as a king, queen, or dictator. If you don’t live like a king, take comfort in this quote from the English poet John Donne: “Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.”
Vocabulary lists containing palace
"Return to Titanic" and "Talking with Robert Ballard"
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Unit 13
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for June 4–June 10, 2022
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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.
See Examples For:
“Next time I see you, I expect to see you in Miraflores,” one told her on a recent outing, referring to the presidential palace in Caracas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
Meza told Semana that she was taken by Sarabia's driver to an official building opposite the presidential palace, saying it felt like "a kidnapping".
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
“God willing, it will expand to even more countries,” Rubio said at the presidential palace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026
One evening, poring through the picturesque archives at the Yale Club while researching her monograph on memory and mind palace theory, Béatrice stumbles upon a curious audiotape.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026
His suite was half the size of Benji’s presidential palace, and he only had a minute to look around, but he knew it was the nicest place he’d ever stayed.
From "Millionaires for the Month" by Stacey McAnulty
Maybe it’s not just that he envies their absolute power on the home front or their unabashedly lavish palaces.
From Slate ● Sep. 10, 2026
Habaneros grumble that the money he spent turning old palaces into stunning hotels -- now empty -- was wasted.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
The city had no known palaces where a ruler or ruling class could have controlled these tools of commerce and administration.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 30, 2026
Yachts akin to floating palaces fill the marina, celebrity chefs jet in for residencies at local restaurants and Pampelonne Beach morphs into a sandy catwalk with seasonal beach clubs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
Pizarro then raided all the temples and palaces and melted down the gold he found and sent that back.
From "Dead End in Norvelt" by Jack Gantos
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.
