BEYOND THE PALE Definition & Meaning

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beyond the pale

Totally unacceptable: “His business practices have always been questionable, but this last takeover was beyond the pale.” The Pale in Ireland was a territorial limit beyond which English rule did not extend.

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Idioms and Phrases

Outside the bounds of morality, good behavior or judgment; unacceptable. For example, She thought taking the boys to a topless show was beyond the pale . The noun pale , from the Latin palum , meant “a stake for fences” or “a fence made from such stakes.” By extension it came to be used for an area confined by a fence and for any boundary, limit, or restriction, both of these meanings dating from the late 1300s. The pale referred to in the idiom is usually taken to mean the English Pale , the part of Ireland under English rule, and therefore, as perceived by its rulers, within the bounds of civilization.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

But for all the outrages we've seen in these first couple of months — and there are so many — Trump has come up with a few that are so beyond the pale that you have to start questioning his sanity and the sanity of those who are enabling him.

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And explaining why I thought it was beyond the pale was never going to be easy.

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His picks, she said, “are historically aberrational outliers, beyond the pale normally, and therefore he is making a point by appointing them.”

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Norris was the driver who ended up penalised in their battle for the lead in Texas but many of the other drivers felt Verstappen’s defensive tactics were beyond the pale.

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“It’s so fundamentally, outrageously beyond the pale of how this country has worked that it’s hard to articulate how insane it is.”

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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