Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A skin sore caused by friction and abrasion.
- noun Exasperation; vexation.
- noun The cause of such vexation.
- intransitive verb To irk or exasperate; vex.
- intransitive verb To wear away or make sore by abrasion; chafe.
- intransitive verb To become worn or sore by abrasion.
- noun Outrageous insolence; effrontery.
- noun Bitterness of feeling; rancor.
- noun Something bitter to endure.
- noun An abnormal growth of plant tissue caused by an organism, such as an insect, mite, or bacterium, or by a wound.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The bitter secretion of the liver: same as
bile , 1. See alsoox-gall . - noun Hence—2. Bitterness of feeling; rancor; malignity; hate.
- noun The gall-bladder.
- noun [Cf.
bile , 2.] Impudence; effrontery; cheek. [Local, slang.] - noun The scum of melted glass.
- noun A long space without weft in a piece of cloth.
- To impregnate with a decoction of galls.
- noun A sore on the skin, caused by fretting or rubbing; an excoriation.
- noun A fault, imperfection, or blemish. Halliwell. [Prov. Eng.]
- noun In stone- and marble-cutting, a hollow made in the surface of a slab by changing the direction of the cut.
- noun A spot where grass, corn, or trees have failed. Halliwell (spelled
gaul ). - noun In the southern United States, a low spot, as near the mouth of a river, where the soil under the matted surface has been washed away, or has been so exhausted that nothing will grow on it. See
bay-gall . - To fret and wear away, as the skin, by friction; excoriate; break the skin of by rubbing: as, a saddle galls the back of a horse.
- To impair the surface of by rubbing; wear away: as, to
gall a mast or a cable. - To fret; vex; irritate: as, to be galled by sarcasm.
- To harass; distress: as, the troops were galled by the shot of the enemy.
- To fret; be or become chafed.
- To act in a galling manner; make galling or irritating remarks.
- noun A small silver coin of Cambodia, worth about fourpence.
- noun A vegetable excrescence produced by the deposit of the egg of an insect in the bark or leaves of a plant, ordinarily due to the action of some virus deposited by the female along with the egg, but often to the irritation of the larva.
- noun An excrescence on or under the skin of a mammal or a bird, produced by the puncture of an acarid or of an insect of the dipterous genus Œstrus. Encyc. Brit.
- noun A distortion in a plant caused by a species of parasitic fungus.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb (Dyeing) To impregnate with a decoction of gallnuts.
- noun (Zoöl.) An excrescence of any form produced on any part of a plant by insects or their larvae. They are most commonly caused by small Hymenoptera and Diptera which puncture the bark and lay their eggs in the wounds. The larvae live within the galls. Some galls are due to aphids, mites, etc. See
gallnut . - noun (Zoöl.) any insect that produces galls.
- noun (Zoöl.) any small dipterous insect that produces galls.
- noun the oak (
Quercus infectoria ) which yields the galls of commerce. - noun the neutral salt skimmed off from the surface of melted crown glass;- called also
glass gall andsandiver . - noun (Zoöl.) See
Gallfly . - transitive verb To fret and wear away by friction; to hurt or break the skin of by rubbing; to chafe; to injure the surface of by attrition
- transitive verb To fret; to vex.
- transitive verb To injure; to harass; to annoy.
- noun (Physiol.) The bitter, alkaline, viscid fluid found in the gall bladder, beneath the liver. It consists of the secretion of the liver, or bile, mixed with that of the mucous membrane of the gall bladder.
- noun The gall bladder.
- noun Anything extremely bitter; bitterness; rancor.
- noun Slang Impudence; brazen assurance.
- noun (Anat.) the membranous sac, in which the bile, or gall, is stored up, as secreted by the liver; the cholecystis. See
Illust. ofDigestive apparatus .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I. i.101 (158,2) Though ink be made of gall] Shakespeare, even in this poor conceit, has confounded the vegetable _galls_ used in ink, with the animal _gall_, supposed to be bitter.
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746
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The word gall has appeared in 110 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Oct. 7 in the blog post "'Simpsons' Voice Actor Speaks Out About Negotiations With Fox," by Dave Itzkoff:
NYT > Home Page By THE LEARNING NETWORK 2011
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The next time the cook cleans out a fowl, ask her to show you the little greenish bladder which she calls the gall and which she takes such care not to burst, because it contains a bitter liquid which, if spilt upon it, would quite ruin the flavor of the fowl.
The History of a Mouthful of Bread And its effect on the organization of men and animals Jean Mac�� 1854
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Learn more about the word "gall" and see usage examples across a range of subjects on the Vocabulary.com dictionary.
NYT > Home Page By THE LEARNING NETWORK 2011
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The part that gets my gall is how quickly they were to blame FEMA for every single misfortune.
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The gall is most precious, and the flesh was all taken, but for what purpose I don't know.
The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither Isabella Lucy 1883
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& I must be the best tempered fellow in Great Britain for the devil a drop of gall is there in my bile-bag.
Letter 154 1796
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i find it amazing that a president of a country that has NO functioning democracy finds it possible to comment on another country†™ s democracy. the gall is nauseating
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In Leviticus 3:4, 10, and 15, the “covering of the liver” refers to the gall bladder.
Modern Science in the Bible Ben Hobrink 2011
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In Leviticus 3:4, 10, and 15, the “covering of the liver” refers to the gall bladder.
Modern Science in the Bible Ben Hobrink 2011
bilby commented on the word gall
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall.
- Robert Frost, 'Directive'.
October 4, 2008
bilby commented on the word gall
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 'Solitude'.
September 30, 2009
mohitanand commented on the word gall
The speeding car had the gall to switch five lanes at once, run through a red light, and then cut off a police car before finally coming to a stop in front of a sea of flashing red lights.
October 12, 2016
ruzuzu commented on the word gall
"In the southern United States, a low spot, as near the mouth of a river, where the soil under the matted surface has been washed away, or has been so exhausted that nothing will grow on it. See bay-gall."
-- from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
April 6, 2017
MaryW commented on the word gall
to irritate or cause pain
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883), ch. 27February 10, 2019