▪ I. pall-mall
(pɛlˈmɛl, pælˈmæl)
Also 6–7 palle-maille, 7 pallemaile, paille maille, -mail, pale-maille, pelemele, pelmel, pal-mall, 7–9 pell mell.
[a. obs. F. pallemaille, palmaille, palmail (16th c.), paillemail, palemail, -maille (17th c.), a. It. pallamaglio (Florio 1598–1611: see quot. in sense 1), lit. ‘ball-mallet’, f. palla ‘any kind of ball, ballet, or boule’, + maglio ‘a mallet or a beetle’. It. palla is a variant of balla ball; maglio:—L. malleus hammer. Cf. also mall.]
† 1. A mallet for striking a ball; spec. that used in the game described in sense 2. Obs.
1568 Cal. Scot. Papers (1900) II. 558 [Mary was playing at Seton] richt oppinlie at the feildis with the palmall and goif. 1605 P. Erondelle Fr. Garden for Eng. Ladies N iij b, If one had Paillemails, it were good to play in this Alley, for it is of a reasonable good length, straight and euen. 1611 Florio, Palamaglio, a pale-maile, that is a stick with a mallet at one end of it to strike and cast a woodden ball with, much vsed..in Italy. Also the game or play with it. |
2. A game practised in Italy, France and Scotland, from the 16th c., and in England in the 17th c., in which a boxwood ball was driven through an iron ring suspended at some height above the ground in a long alley; the player who, starting from one end of the alley, could drive the ball through the ring with the fewest strokes or within a given number of them winning the game.
1598 Dallington Meth. Trav. (1606) T iv b, Among all the exercises of France, I preferre none before the Palle-maille... I maruell wee haue not brought this sport also into England. 1599 Jas. I βασιλ. Δωρον iii. (1603) 121 The exercises I would have you to use are..playing at the caitche or tennise, archery, palle maille. 1634 Peacham Compl. Gent. xix. §3. 233 Their [the French] exercises are for the most part Tennise play, Pallemaile [etc.]. 1647 Perfect Occurr. 15–22 Oct. in Thomasson Tracts (Br. Mus.) XXIX. No. 42. 292 His Majesties [Chas. I] usuall Recreations are Hunting, Pelmel, and Tennes. 1650 Sir R. Stapylton Strada's Low C. Warres v. 113 Playing at Pall Mall. 1656 Blount Glossogr. s.v. Pale Maille, This game was heretofore used at the Alley near St. Jameses, and vulgarly called Pel-Mel. 1661 Pepys Diary 2 Apr., To St. James's Park, where I saw the Duke of York playing at Pelemele, the first time that ever I saw the sport. 1884 Chambers's Jrnl. 1 Nov. 695/1 A couple of the mallets and a ball used in the old game of pall-mall. 1890 A. Lang in Golf (Badm. Libr.) (1895) 11 The game of pell mell is probably older in Scotland than in England, and was borrowed from our ‘auld ally’ of France. |
† b. Applied to the Persian changān or polo. Obs.
1684 Phillips tr. Tavernier's Trav. iv. v. 154 Here [at Ispahan] the men play at Pall-mall on horseback, the Horse-man being to strike the Ball running at full speed, between the two Goals. |
† 3. The alley in which the game was played.
1644 Evelyn Diary 27 Feb., [St. Germains] a very noble garden and parke, where is a pall-maill. Ibid. 1 May, At Blois..we walked up into y⊇ Pall Mall. 1663 Pepys Diary 15 May, I walked in the Parke, discoursing with the keeper of the Pell Mell, who was sweeping of it; who told me of what the earth is mixed that do floor the Mall, and that over all there is cockle-shells powdered. 1671 Phil. Trans. VI. 2152 The Alleys are of the largeness of a Pal-mall. 1679–88 Secr. Serv. Money Chas. & Jas. (Camden) 133 To Lawrence Dupuy,..to be laid out and expended towards the repayring the Pall Mall in St. James's Parke. |
b. The name of a street developed from one of these alleys in London, now the centre of London club life; also used as a synonym for the War Office which was situated in Pall Mall.
[1650 Ret. Commiss. Crown Lands in Archæol. Jrnl. (1854) XI. 256 Elm trees standing in Pall Mall Walk, in a very decent and regular manner on both sides the walk, being in number 140.] 1656–7 in P. Cunningham Handbk. Lond. (new ed.) 372/2 Down the Haymarket and in the Pall Mall. 1660 Pepys Diary 26 July, We went to Wood's at the Pell Mell (our old house for clubbing). 1661 T. Rugge Diurnall Sept. (B. M. MS.), [The road] from Charing Cross to St. James', by St. James' Park wall and at the backside of Pall Mall, is now altered, by reason a new Pall Mall is made for the use of His Majesty in St. James' Park by the wall. 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. II. 573 He died in his house situated in the Pall Mall within the Liberty of the City of Westminster. 1714 Gay Trivia ii. 258 O bear me to the path of fair Pall Mall; Safe are thy pavements, grateful is thy smell! 1854 Way in Archæol. Jrnl. XI. 256. 1861 Thackeray Four Georges, Geo. III 71 Pall Mall is the great social Exchange of London now..the mart of news, of politics, of scandal, of rumour. 1893 Daily News 17 Apr. 4/7 It would be a very strong thing for Whitehall or Pall Mall to overrule the joint discretion of the military and municipal authorities. |
4. Comb., as † pall-mall-beetle [beetle n.1], the mallet used in the game.
1644 Digby Nat. Bodies ix. 73 We see a stroak with a rackett vpon a ball, or with a pailemaile beetle vpon a boule maketh it fly from it. |
▪ II. pall-mall
obs. form of pell-mell.