pallor

American  

[pal-er] / ˈpæl ər /

noun

• pallors
  plural

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

---

pallor British  

/ ˈpælə /

noun

1. a pale condition, esp when unnatural

   fear gave his face a deathly pallor

---

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

What has many rows of teeth, a terrifying set of jaws and a corpse-like pallor?

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2024

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

Such is the pallor of grisly discoveries in Northern Ireland.

From New York Times ● Feb. 29, 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

Charlie Ledley was even worse: He had the pallor of a mortician and the manner of a man bent on putting off, for as long as possible, definite action.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

They were all admirable types, with chiselled features and pure lines, warm pallors of complexion of which even the reflections were absorbed by the whiteness of their haiks.

From The Nabob by W. Blaydes

By and by appeared the faint lights of the house, with blotchy pallors thinning the mist and darkness.

From Weighed and Wanting by George MacDonald

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