palace

PAL-is/ˈpæl.ɪs/

4 meanings of palace

1
nouncountable
The official residence of a head of state or other high dignitary, especially in a monarchy or empire.
The president received foreign ambassadors at the presidential palace downtown.
The emperor rarely left the palace except for state ceremonies and processions.
Note
The original sense, named for a hill in Rome. Latin palātium came from Palātium, the Palatine, where the Republic's aristocracy and later the emperors built their splendid houses. The name of a place became the name of the building, then passed through Old French palais and Middle English paleys. The word still keeps its official edge: a presidential palace is a seat of government as much as a home.
2
nouncountable
A very large, lavishly ornate residence; any home built on a grand and luxurious scale.
The oil tycoon's hillside palace had forty rooms and an indoor waterfall.
She auctioned off the marble palace her grandfather had built overlooking the bay.
Similarmansion
Oppositehovel, shack
Note
Grandeur rather than office makes a house a palace here. The word stretches to any splendid private dwelling. In Margery Allingham's The China Governess (1963), an old family "had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch": private ambition, no throne. When the owner holds no office, the word praises scale and luxury. When a ruler lives there, it points back to the official residence.
3
nouncountable
A large and richly decorated public building where entertainment is staged or exhibitions are held.
The restored palace on Fifth Street now hosts concerts and traveling art exhibitions.
Thousands attended the winter flower show at the great glass palace in the park.
Similarhall, pavilion

Less common meaning

4
verbarchaic
To decorate or adorn in an ornate fashion.
The duke spared no expense to palace his banquet hall for the royal visit.
Craftsmen palaced the chapel ceiling with gilded carvings and painted stars.
Note
An archaic verb made from the noun, and its participle palaced shows it at work. Kenneth Morris's The Crest-Wave of Evolution (1921) pictures a Great King "palaced marvelously … in cities" beside which Athens seemed mean. There the meaning leans toward being housed in splendor as much as adorned. In modern prose it reads as a deliberate antique flourish, so use it only where that effect is wanted.

Practice

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Origin

It comes from Middle English paleys, from Old French palais, from Latin palātium, which referred to the Palatine Hill in Rome: one of the city's seven hills, where the Roman aristocracy and later the emperors built large, splendid houses. The name is ultimately from either Etruscan (the source of Pales, the Italic goddess of shepherds and flocks) or Latin palus ("stake; enclosure").