paling
/ˈpeɪlɪŋ/noun, verb
paling is a noun meaning “A pointed stick used to make a fence” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-A-L-I-N-G, and it appears about once in every 7 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of paling is palings.
What does paling mean?
noun
- 1
A pointed stick used to make a fence.
- 2
A fence made of palings.
- 3
A fence made of galvanized sheeting.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of pale
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce paling?
- /ˈpeɪlɪŋ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-paling.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of paling
- palings plural
- pailing
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is paling?
Paling appears about once in every 7 million words in written English, the 76,798th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Paling in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense stick:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | pieu |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does paling come from?
From Middle English palyng, palynge, equivalent to pale + -ing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).