Word Confusion: Palate vs Palette vs Pallet

Plural: palates

Plural: palettes

Alternative spelling: pallet (which, as an artist, I have never seen used)

Verb, transitive ⁴

Plural for the noun and third person present verb: pallets
Past tense or past participle: palleted
Present participle: palleting

An appreciation for food and drink or simply liking

• Intellectual or aesthetic taste
• Mental appreciation

[Medical] The bony and muscular partition between the oral and nasal cavities

[Anatomy] The roof of the mouth, consisting of an anterior bony portion (hard palate) and a posterior muscular portion (soft palate) that separate the oral cavity from the nasal cavity

[Botany; in some two-lipped corollas] The projecting part of the lower lip that closes the opening of the corolla

A blunt blade used to scrape or apply paint

A range of colors used by an artist when creating a particular piece of art, a decorator in designing a room, a scene, etc., or a musician in choosing tones or instruments for a piece

[Computer Graphics] Range of colors used in a computer or software program

[Ancient Egyptian art] A somewhat flattish slate object of various shapes, carved with commemorative scenes or motifs or, especially in the smaller pieces, containing a recessed area probably for holding eye makeup and often used as a votive offering

A small or makeshift bed

A portable platform used to keep objects or people off the ground or make it easier to move a pile of objects with a forklift ²

A flat wooden blade with a handle, used to shape clay or plaster

An artist’s palette

A projection on a machine part, serving to change the mode of motion of a wheel

• [In a clock or watch] A projection transmitting motion from an escapement to a pendulum or balance wheel

A flat board or metal plate used to support ceramic articles during drying

[Printing] Typeholder

[In gilding] An instrument used to take up the gold leaves from the pillow and to apply and extend them

[Heraldry] The diminutive of the pale, a narrow vertical strip, usually borne in groups of two or three ³

Verb, transitive:
Palettize

• To place materials upon pallets for handling or moving
• To perform (a materials-handling operation) with the aid of pallets
• To equip with pallets or with the ability to handle pallets

Can your palate taste the tartness of the lime?

You have a very discerning palate for fine things.

This is a wine with a zingy, peachy palate.

The bony part of the palate is called the hard palate.

Desfontaines’ toad-flax has a yellow palate.

Yellow Rattle, Rhinanthus minor, has numerous palates, since the flower resembles two lips when it’s open.

Using his palette knife, Picasso picked up the color and spread it across the canvas.

I prefer a palette of bright, cheerful colors.

He commands the sort of tonal palette that this music needs.

The decorator used a palette of cool colors for the bathrooms.

The Internet has a limited palette of colors.

Mummy, have you seen my palette.

We can make up a pallet of pine boughs.

God, this is a moldy pallet.

Pallets are quite popular these days for interior decorating.

He made up a pallet of furs on the cave floor.

Verb, transitive:
They’ll need to palletize the truck.

They just finished palletizing the load.

1. Middle English from the Anglo-Norman French paillete, which is from paille meaning straw, which is itself from the Latin palea.
2. Late Middle English from the French palette meaning little blade, from the Latin pala meaning spade.
3. Late 15th century, pale (heraldry).
4. 1550–60 Middle French palette meaning small shovel. See palette.