The smell of the damp eucalyptpalings that clad the walls exhaling their aromatic resin into the house, mingling with the fragrance of the myrtle burning in the fireplace.
Gentlemen must have observed that many of the nurserymen’s plantations were wide and extensive, some of them covering several acres; and that theirpalings and fences were for the most part low, and might be so weak and out of repair, as to afford a very insufficient security against the inroads of robbers and spoilers.
The wide doors and windows of the restaurant stood open, beneath large awnings, to a wide pavement, where there were other plants in tubs, and rows of spreading trees, and beyond which there was a large shady square, without anypalings, and with marble-paved walks.
He worked badly. He had to paint a large sign on a corrugated ironpaling. Doing letters on a corrugated surface was bad enough; to paint a cow and a gate, as he had to, was maddening.
FromMiddle Dutchpalinc,padelinc,paeldinc, fromOld Dutchpaelding,paleding,palezinc. The original form seems to be*palathing (attested in the placenamePalathingadīc) or, as some sources prefer,*pathaling. This has no cognates outside Dutch and probably goes back to a substrate language. As the oldest attestation is (latinised)palengus, one could alternatively see the-th- as excrescent and thus derived the word fromProto-West Germanic*pāl(“pole”) after the fish's shape. While this is less likely, the distinction sometimes made betweenaal(“juvenile eel”) andpaling(“large, adult eel”) may indeed have been influenced by association withpaal.
