PALETTE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Palette

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pˈælət/ Listen

noun

Palette n.

1.

(Paint.) A thin, oval or square board, or tablet, with a thumb hole at one end for holding it, on which a painter lays and mixes his pigments. Hence, any other object, usually one with a flat surface, used for the same purpose. (Written also pallet)

2.

Hence: The complete set of colors used by an artist or other person in creating an image, in any medium. The meaning of this term has been extended in modern times to include the set of colors used in a particular computer application, or the complete set of of colors available in computer displays or printing techniques.

3.

Hence: The complete range of resources and techniques used in any art, such as music.

4.

(Anc. Armor) One of the plates covering the points of junction at the bend of the shoulders and elbows.

5.

(Mech.) A breastplate for a breast drill.

Palette knife, a knife with a very flexible steel blade and no cutting edge, rounded at the end, used by painters to mix colors on the grinding slab or palette.

To set the palette (Paint.), to lay upon it the required pigments in a certain order, according to the intended use of them in a picture.

See images of 'Palette'

Etymology of 'Palette'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Palette" Quotes from Famous Books

... Joan colored suddenly and busied herself with tubes of paint. She believed he was jealous of the handsome Lombard. She began to mix some pigments on the palette. Delgrado, already regretting an inexplicable outburst, turned from the picture and looked at Murillo's "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a diadem ...

— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... a rule. During the second winter, however, after a slight illness brought on by over-application, he seemed to have a thought upon his mind that troubled him. One day he impatiently threw down his palette and put his hands ...

— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... never seem tired of pelting the novelist with comparisons drawn between painting and photography. "Mr. So-and-So's fidelity to life suggests the camera rather than the brush and palette"; and the implication is that Mr. So-and-So and the camera resemble each other in their tendency to reproduce irrelevant detail. The camera, it is assumed, repeats this irrelevant detail. The photographer does not select. But is this true? I have known many enthusiasts ...

— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... profoundly moved by the picturesque effect, and the following morning discovered me hard at work upon a most elaborate study of the beautiful carved figures upon the confessional boxes. I had just laid out my palette preparatory to painting that picture which would of course make my name and fortune, when a hoarse and terribly British guffaw at my elbow startled me, and turning round I encountered some acquaintances to whom the scene seemed ...

— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... made it hot for us, I tell you. Poor old Bottle Green caught it first, for painting before he'd given her permission, and then he jumped on me for not painting. Radford caught it and then he lit on Slovinski for using the Whistler palette, and she just blew up! These Poles aren't like us tame tabbies, you know, and she's full of ginger, for all her sleepy ways. She's terribly high-born, you know, and can't bear anyone to ...

— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com