Impaled

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ɪmˈpeɪld/

Definitions

1. To be pierced or penetrated by a sharp object, to be caught in a situation that causes significant harm or danger, and to be forcefully stabbed with something pointy that leads to injury or attachment
2. Being thrust through by a pointed instrument, experiencing intense distress due to a perilous circumstance, and suffering injury from a stabbing action with a sharp item that immobilizes
3. To be stabbed or pierced by a pointed object so that it passes through something

Etymology: "Impaled" is the past tense and past participle of "impale," and the verb carries a much older sense than the one most readers know. Its root is the Latin "palus," meaning a stake or pole, which also gave English "pale" in the sense of a vertical stripe or fence post. To impale was originally to fix someone on a stake, the way a sharpened post was driven through a body, and that grim literal meaning is still present in the word. The verb came into English through Middle French, which took it from Medieval Latin "impālāre," literally "to enclose with stakes." A palisade, a fence of pointed stakes, shares this root, so the idea of a barrier of upright posts runs underneath the verb's history. That is why the word could be used for both a fence and a spike.

Synonyms: pierced, stabbed, skewered, transfixed, punctured