What does pallet mean?
A pallet is most commonly a low, sturdy platform used to support goods during storage, transport, or loading. Because pallets are flat and easily moved, the term also extends to a portable bed or a simple sleeping platform. The word can describe a shallow tray carrying or supporting something, especially a substantial object. In older and more literary usage, a pallet was a temporary bed made from straw, rushes, boards, or other available materials; to “pallet” meant to sleep in such a place. The modern logistical sense is by far the dominant one, but the older sense remains familiar through idioms such as “a pallet on the floor.” A pallet is distinct from a palette, which holds or mixes paints.
A low platform or flat support used for carrying, stacking, storing, or transporting goods; also, a portable or makeshift bed.
"The bags of cement were stacked five high on a pallet."
The industrial and shipping sense is dominant today. The older sense of a simple sleeping platform is chiefly literary, historical, or informal.
To sleep or lie on a makeshift bed or pallet.
"The exhausted soldiers palleted on the stone floor."
Now uncommon and chiefly found in literary or historical contexts.
Used especially for the platforms used to support or transport goods.
"A forklift lifted three pallets from the loading bay."
From a simple wooden platform to an improvised place to sleep, a pallet has supported both commerce and weary travelers.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does pallet come from?
The word entered Middle English in the sense of a simple bed or sleeping platform, borrowing Anglo-French palet, a diminutive form related to pale, meaning a plank or stake. By the eighteenth century, pallet had acquired the broader meaning of a low platform or tray. Its modern use for the load-supporting platforms of warehouses and shipping developed during the nineteenth century. The related word palette followed a different path, referring first to a board on which painters ground or mixed pigments.
Related word forms
How pallet is actually used
In logistics and shipping, “pallet” usually refers specifically to a low, rectangular load-supporting platform. The sense of a temporary sleeping place is relatively literary or informal, and the verb “to pallet” is now uncommon in standard contemporary English.
Easily confused with pallet
A pallet is a platform or portable bed, whereas a palette is the board or container used by an artist to hold and mix paints.