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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pal.

A friend, buddy, mate, cobber; someone to hang around with.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/pæl/

  1. A friend, buddy, mate, cobber; someone to hang around with.

    colloquial
    Little Timmy's out playing with his pals.

  2. An informal term of address, often used ironically in a hostile way.

    colloquial
    Don't you threaten me, pal – I'll report you to the police.
Where this word comes from

PIE word *bʰréh₂tēr Borrowed from Angloromani pal (“brother, friend”), from Romani phral (“brother”), from Sanskrit भ्रातृ (bhrātṛ, “brother”). Doublet of bhai, brother, bru, frater, friar, and vai.

verb/pæl/

  1. Synonym of pal around.

Where this word comes from

PIE word *bʰréh₂tēr Borrowed from Angloromani pal (“brother, friend”), from Romani phral (“brother”), from Sanskrit भ्रातृ (bhrātṛ, “brother”). Doublet of bhai, brother, bru, frater, friar, and vai.

noun

  1. Alternative form of paul (“kind of tent”).

    alt-of · alternative
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.