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:
The palace issued a rebuttal to the book: “The pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Speculation intensified last week after Tugay met Erdogan at the presidential palace in Ankara.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
Alexander would die far from home in the palace at Babylon—Mr. Richardson infers typhoid—in 323 B.C.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
A king must come from the Babiito clan, specifically the lineage of King George David Matthew Kamurasi Rukidi III, according to royal palace sources.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
Before Jack could even open his mouth to respond, the tornadoes began to slowly pull away from each other, separating enough to open the way into the palace.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
Born into a Polish aristocratic Catholic family with ornate palaces and substantive political influence, d’Ornano descended from the Radziwill line of Polish princes to Prussian kings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
The room is described as a "calm, cosy place for contemplation" by the independent charity which looks after six royal sites and palaces.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
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
And all the temples, towers, palaces, pyramids, and bridges cast long, disastrous- looking shadows in the light of that withered sun.
From "The Magician's Nephew" by C. S. Lewis
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
