Make Your Point: PALETTE

Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PALETTE

Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.

pronounce PALETTE:

PAL ut

connect this word to others:

I like to place the lovely word palette next to gamut, spectrum, and panoply. All four can mean "a full set, a certain range," each with its own visual connotation.

Of gamut, spectrum, and panoply, which one is the closest synonym of palette because it, too, suggests a range of colors? Which one suggests a range of musical notes? And which one suggests a full set of armor? If you're not sure, give them a click.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

Our word "palette" traces back through French to the Latin pala, "a spade, or a shoulder blade."

That's the general shape of a palette: an oval or vaguely spade-shaped board for mixing colors while painting.

(Source)

In a broader sense, a palette can be a group of specific colors that you're using to create or decorate something.

Even more broadly, it can be a group or range of certain elements that you're using to create anything.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Noun, the countable kind: "Those two rooms are decorated in very different palettes;" "Elton John uses a limited palette of melodic shapes, but he keeps mixing them together in beautiful ways."

Other forms:

The plural noun is "palettes."

Some homophones to watch out for:

When you want the word "palette," you don't want to accidentally swap in "palate" (the top of the mouth, or the sense of taste) or "pallet" (a flat platform or flat bed). The three sound the same.

You might guess that they share a common root, since they're all pretty much flat things, right? But actually they all trace back to different Latin roots:
1. "Palette" comes from pala, "a spade, or a shoulder blade."
2. "Palate" comes from palatum, "a vault, or the roof of the mouth."
3. "Pallet" comes from palea, "chaff or straw (hence, later, a bed)."

(You might be wondering if pala, palatum, and palea all share an even older common root. As far as I can tell, we don't have a good way of finding out if that's true.)

how to use it:

Pick the lovely, common word "palette" when you want to talk literally about groups of colors. You might describe the bright, light, murky, dark, neutral, rainbow, earth tone, pastel, or gemstone palette of some particular outfit, room, makeup look, or other work of art. "I love the intense palette used on the album cover for Fiona Apple's The Idler Wheel." "I love the neon rainbow palette that these scientists used when mapping a bit of a mouse's brain."

Or, pick "palette" when you want to get figurative and compare some range of things to a set of colors chosen for a painting, especially if that range of things seems artistic, in both selection and implementation. "Authors constantly borrow from Shakespeare's palette of wordplay." From a 1991 magazine: "Of all New England's charms, perhaps none is so undiscovered... as its diverse palette of summer theater."

examples:

"I followed the swift movements of her hand as she moved the brush from palette to paper and then back again."
— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus, 2003

"Bach's and Handel's rich palette of chords was stripped back to just a handful."
— Howard Goodall, The Story of Music, 2012

has this page helped you understand "palette"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "palette" without saying "selection of things for creating" or "range of things to use."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "(Someone or something) offered a new palette of (some kind of) possibilities."

Example 1: "I think it was the summer before seventh grade when I picked up a copy of KAPLAN Word Power, a thick and glossy paperback that offered a new palette of verbal possibilities."

Example 2: "Debussy created a new soundscape for the piano. The reformation of scales and harmonies that he introduced offered a daringly new palette of aural possibilities."
— Howard Goodall, The Story of Music, 2012

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month: Poetic Connections!

Check out three snippets from a poem, along with three words we've studied—some beautiful, some outrageous—and decide which word you'll connect to each snippet. To see the definitions, highlight the hidden white text after each word.

Here's an example:

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot

Snippets:
1. "There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet"
2. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"
3. "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each"

Words:
A. facade (meaning... a fake attitude or appearance)
B. mellifluous (meaning... sounding sweet, like honey)
C. taedium vitae (meaning... the feeling that life is tiresome)

Answers: I'd connect facade to snippet 1 because you're creating a false version of yourself, mellifluous to snippet 3 because the singing is probably beautiful and sweet, and taedium vitae to snippet 2 because the speaker seems bored with life.

Try this set today:

"The Psychic" by Victoria Redel

Snippets:
1. "You two were together first in Egypt & then at Stonehenge, & I nodded though I've never been"
2. "the reckless swerve & skid of the world"
3. "the psychic opened his hands & shrugged up his shoulders"

Words:
A. Sibylline (meaning... mystic or hazy, as if telling the future vaguely)
B. termless (meaning... infinite or free from boundaries)
C. vicissitudes (meaning... unpredictable changes in life)

To see one possible set of answers, scroll all the way down; if your answers don't match these, that's fine: all that matters is that yours make sense to you.

review this word:

1. Something created WITHOUT a palette might be described as

A. MONOCHROME: done in shades of just one color.
B. POLYMATH: demonstrating accomplishment in many different fields.
C. MONOMANIACAL: demonstrating a deep obsession with just one thing.

2. In Lights thro' Lattice, J. E. A. Brown wrote: "And now the Spring... From her bright palette brought the _____ of the young corn, and of the _____."

A. whisper .. rain
B. emerald .. indigo
C. gift .. strawberriese

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PALETTE Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to "Make Your Point" for a daily vocabulary boost.

Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PALETTE

Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.