pallet

plural pallets

1. A bed of loose straw.

   Near-synonym: strawbed (mattress sense)

   2 more examples

   That good old blind bibber of Helicon I wot well, came a begging to one of the chiefe citties of Greece, & promiſed them vaſt corpulent volumes of immortallity, if they would beſtowe vpon him but a ſlender outbrothers annuity of muttõ & broth, and a pallet to ſleep on; and with deriſion they reiected him, [...]

   1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, page 3

   Weary, but too anxious for sleep, Beatrice gazed round the miserable little room: the walls, from which the plaster was mouldering—the cobwebs, that for years had been gathering on the rafters of the roof—the window, or rather opening, for window there was none, but a wooden shutter, which kept creaking backwards and forwards—the floor, discoloured with dirt—the wretched pallet—all struck her with a sick shudder of loathing and misery.

   1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 222–223

   Synonyms: strawbed

2. broadlyAny makeshift bedding place.

   Near-synonym: scratcher (slang)

   Synonyms: scratcher

3. A portable platform, usually designed to be easily moved by a forklift, on which goods can be stacked, for transport or storage.

   Synonyms: skid

present singular third person pallets · participle present palleting · participle past palleted · past palleted

1. transitiveTo load or stack (goods) onto pallets.

plural pallets · alternative palet

1. governmentA narrow vertical stripe, narrower than a pale. Diminutive of pale.

plural pallets

1. archaicpaintingArchaic form of palette.

   For example, let a painter's pallet be suspended from the thumb-hole, as in the figure […]

   1860, Chambers's Information for the People, volume 1, page 203

   1 more example

   The Old Dragon fled when the wonder he spied, / And cursed his own fruitless endeavor; / While the Painter call'd after his rage to deride, / Shook his pallet and brushes in triumph, and cried, / "I'll paint thee more ugly than ever!"

   1798, Robert Southey, The Pious Painter

2. A wooden implement, often oval or round, used by potters, crucible makers, etc., for forming, beating, and rounding their works.
3. A potter's wheel.
4. gildingAn instrument used to take up gold leaf from the pillow, and to apply it.
5. gildingA tool for gilding the backs of books over the bands.
6. A board on which a newly moulded brick is conveyed to the hack.
7. engineeringA click or pawl for driving a ratchet wheel.
8. engineeringOne of the series of disks or pistons in the chain pump.
9. hobbiesOne of the pieces or levers connected with the pendulum of a clock, or the balance of a watch, which receive the immediate impulse of the scape-wheel, or balance wheel.

   the swing wheel […]is represented as being locked by one of its teeth on the nib or detent part of the right hand pallet, and the moment when the wheel is unlocked, the tooth at the left hand pallet is ready to press forward and raise up that pallet

   1832, Thomas Reid, Treatise on Clock and Watch Making

10. entertainmentIn the organ, a valve between the wind chest and the mouth of a pipe or row of pipes.
11. biologyOne of a pair of shelly plates that protect the siphon tubes of certain bivalves, such as the Teredo.

plural pallets

1. historicalrareA Parisian measure of blood let; a cup containing three ounces, formerly used by surgeons.First known use 1627