paling

• IPA^(key): /ˈpeɪlɪŋ/

paling

1. present participle of pale

paling (plural palings)

1. A pointed stick used to make a fence.
   • 1969, Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, 1971, Chapter 20, p. 117,

     The boys continued hitting the tennis ball with pailings snatched from a fence […]

   • 1997, Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, New York: Grove Press, 2014, Chapter 6,

     The smell of the damp eucalypt palings that clad the walls exhaling their aromatic resin into the house, mingling with the fragrance of the myrtle burning in the fireplace.

2. A fence made of palings.
   • 1789, Alderman Le Mesurier, addressing the House of Commons, in The Parliamentary Register, London: John Debrett, Volume 26, p. 172,

     Gentlemen must have observed that many of the nurserymen’s plantations were wide and extensive, some of them covering several acres; and that their palings and fences were for the most part low, and might be so weak and out of repair, as to afford a very insufficient security against the inroads of robbers and spoilers.

   • 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 12, in Pride and Prejudice, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton […], OCLC 38659585:

     The park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground.

3. (Caribbean) A fence made of galvanized sheeting.[1]
   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, London: André Deutsch, Part One, Chapter 3, p. 118,

     He worked badly. He had to paint a large sign on a corrugated iron paling. Doing letters on a corrugated surface was bad enough; to paint a cow and a gate, as he had to, was maddening.

• pailing

• Galpin

From Dutch paling, from Middle Dutch paeldinc, from Old Dutch *pathelink.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɑː.lɪŋ/

• Audio

  (file)

paling (plural palings, diminutive palinkie)

1. eel

• aal

From Middle Dutch palinc, padelinc, paeldinc, from Old Dutch paelding, paleding, palezinc. The original form seems to be *palathing (attested in the placename Palathingadīc) or, as some sources prefer, *pathaling. This has no cognates outside Dutch and probably goes back to a substrate language. As the oldest attestation is (latinised) palengus, one could alternatively see the -th- as excrescent and thus derived the word from Proto-West Germanic *pāl (“pole”) after the fish's shape. While this is less likely, the distinction sometimes made between aal (“juvenile eel”) and paling (“large, adult eel”) may indeed have been influenced by association with paal.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpaː.lɪŋ/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pa‧ling
• Rhymes: -aːlɪŋ

paling m (plural palingen, diminutive palinkje n)

1. eel

   Synonym: aal

• palingsound
• palingvisser
• palingvisserij
• peilingen zijn palingen

• Afrikaans: paling
• Berbice Creole Dutch: palinggi
• Negerhollands: paliṅ
• → Papiamentu: paling (dated)

• IPA^(key): [ˈpalɪŋ]
• Hyphenation: pa‧ling

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.).

paling

1. to turn

   Synonym: putar

From Malay paling.

paling

1. most

   Synonyms: ter-, teramat

• “paling” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Language Development and Fostering Agency — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.

paling

1. majority

• para

paling (Jawi spelling ڤاليڠ‎)

1. top; greatest, super
2. mainstream

paling (Jawi spelling ڤاليڠ‎)

1. most, very

• terlalu
• sungguh

• Indonesian: paling

• “paling” in Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu | Malay Literary Reference Centre, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2017.

Borrowed from Indonesian paling.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpa.l̪iŋ/

paling

1. very much

Precedes the verb it modifies.

• Clemens Voorhoeve (1982) The Makian languages and their neighbours‎, Pacific linguistics