Definition: pallet

Source: WordNet (r) 1.7

pallet
     n 1: the range of colour characteristic of a particular artist or
          painting or school of art" [syn: palette]
     2: a portable platform for storing or moving goods that are
        stacked on it
     3: a hand tool with a flat blade used by potters for mixing and
        shaping clay
     4: a mattress filled with straw or a pad made of quilts; used
        as a bed
     5: board that provides a flat surface on which artists mix
        paints and the range of colors used [syn: palette]

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Palette \Pal"ette\, n. [See Pallet a thin board.]
   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. [Written also pallet.]

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

   3. (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. --Fairholt.

Pallet \Pal"let\, n. [OE. paillet, F. paillet a heap of straw,
   fr. paille straw, fr. L. palea chaff; cf. Gr. ? fine meal,
   dust, Skr. pala straw, pal[=a]va chaff. Cf. Paillasse.]
   A small and mean bed; a bed of straw. --Milton.

Pallet \Pal"let\, n. [F. palette: af. It. paletta; prop. and
   orig., a fire shovel, dim. of L. pala a shovel, spade. See
   Peel a shovel.]
   1. (Paint.) Same as Palette.

   2. (Pettery)
      (a) A wooden implement used by potters, crucible makers,
          etc., for forming, beating, and rounding their works.
          It is oval, round, and of other forms.
      (b) A potter's wheel.

   3. (Gilding)
      (a) An instrument used to take up gold leaf from the
          pillow, and to apply it.
      (b) A tool for gilding the backs of books over the bands.

   4. (Brickmaking) A board on which a newly molded brick is
      conveyed to the hack. --Knight.

   5. (Mach.)
      (a) A click or pawl for driving a ratchet wheel.
      (b) One of the series of disks or pistons in the chain
          pump. --Knight.

   6. (Horology) One of the pieces or levers connected with the
      pendulum of a clock, or the balance of a watch, which
      receive the immediate impulse of the scape-wheel, or
      balance wheel. --Brande & C.

   7. (Mus.) In the organ, a valve between the wind chest and
      the mouth of a pipe or row of pipes.

   8. (Zo["o]l.) One of a pair of shelly plates that protect the
      siphon tubes of certain bivalves, as the Teredo. See
      Illust. of Teredo.

   9. A cup containing three ounces, -- ?ormerly used by
      surgeons.