The figurative senses (e.g., impudence, brazenness, chutzpah) are related to the literal sense (i.e., bile) via the lastinglinguocultural effects ofhumorism, which governed Western medicine for many centuries before the advent of scientific medicine.
“Durn ye!” he cried. “I’ll lam ye! Get offen here. I knows ye. Yer one o’ that gang o’ bums that come here last night, an’ now you got thegall to come back beggin’ for food, eh? I’ll lam ye!” and he raised the gun to his shoulder.
1891,Exercises of class day of the senior class, Tuesday, June 23, 1891,page33:
Prichard, while keeping school, had the unmitigatedgall to teach Greek, although he had never studied the subject.
It requires the cunning of a chess master, the planning of a field marshal, the adroitness and polish of a premier of France, or, failing these, the sheer, unmitigatedgall of your door-to-door salesman.
2022 October 18, Placeholder McD, “SCP-7579[offset 1]”, inSCP Foundation[2], archived fromthe original on20 December 2024:
"Also, as apologetic as you were for occupying my time, which I had hoped to spend with my daughter, you used about twice as many words as you needed to, and wasted an entire paragraph complaining about your colleagues. I went back to the SCP-079 file — Supervisor Valis would have had the thing decommissioned years ago if it weren't for your blatant technofetishism. Yet, you have thegall to characterize the Foundation's ongoing political interventions and military operations assquabbles."
He shall flee from the iron weapon and the bow of steel shall strike him through. It is drawn and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of hisgall.
Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that bearethgall and wormwood;
Riding a horse with bruised or broken skin can cause agall, which frequently results in the white saddle marks seen on the withers and backs of some horses.
It moves mygall to hear a preacher descanting on dress and needle-work; and still more, to hear him address the British fair, the fairest of the fair, as if they had only feelings.
[…] he went awkwardly in these clothes at first: wearing the drawers was very awkward to him, and the sleeves of the waistcoatgalled his shoulders and the inside of his arms; but a little easing them where he complained they hurt him, and using himself to them, he took to them at length very well.
I went below, and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a good deal, and still bled freely; but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatlygall me when I used my arm.
Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collargalled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.
June 24, 1778,George Washington,The Writings of George Washington From the Original Manuscript Sources:Volume 12, 1745–1799
The disposition for these detachments is as follows – Morgans corps, to gain the enemy’s right flank; Maxwells brigade to hang on their left. Brigadier Genl. Scott is now marching with a very respectable detachment destined togall the enemys left flank and rear.
Metrinko was hungry, but he wasgalled by how self-congratulatory his captors seemed, how generous and noble and proudly Islamic.
(transitive,technical) To cause pitting on a surface being cut from the friction between the two surfaces exceeding the bond of the material at a point.
Improper cooling and a dull milling cutter on titanium cangall the surface.
I have seen you gleeking andgalling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel
1974, Philip P. Wiener, editor,Dictionary of the History of Ideas[3]:
Even so, Redi retained a belief that in certain other cases—the origin of parasites inside the human or animal body or of grubs inside of oakgalls—there must be spontaneous generation. Bit by bit the evidence grew against such views. In 1670 Jan Swammerdam, painstaking student of the insect’s life cycle, suggested that the grubs ingalls were enclosed in them for the sake of nourishment and must come from insects that had inserted their semen or their eggs into the plants.
But first for your Line. First note, that you are to take care that your hair be round and clear, and free fromgalls, or scabs, or frets: for a well- chosen, even, clear, round hair, of a kind of glass-colour, will prove as strong as three uneven scabby hairs that are ill-chosen, and full ofgalls or unevenness. You shall seldom find a black hair but it is round, but many white are flat and uneven; therefore, if you get a lock of right, round, clear, glass-colour hair, make much of it.
gall in Géza Bárczi,László Országh,et al., editors,A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962.Fifth ed., 1992:→ISBN.
gall in Nóra Ittzés, editor,A magyar nyelv nagyszótára [A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (Nszt.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031(work in progress; publisheda–ez as of 2024).
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
