Palletisation

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of systematically placing items on a flat surface for effective storage and transport
2. The method of arranging products onto a pallet to facilitate handling, storage, or shipment
3. Organizing materials by stacking them on a flat platform to improve movement and warehouse efficiency

Etymology: Palletisation is about as transparent as English compounds get: it is "pallet" with the suffix "-isation", the British spelling of "-ization", which turns a noun into a verb of process and then a noun for the result or the method. A pallet, in this sense, is the flat wooden or plastic platform that goods are stacked on so they can be lifted by a forklift as one unit. The word therefore names the practice of arranging loads onto such platforms, and "-isation" carries the sense of "the act or process of making something into" the thing named, here making a load into a palletised unit. The pallet itself is the older and more interesting half. It comes from an Old French word for a straw bed, derived from "pale", a stake or pointed piece of wood, which is also the source of English "pale" in the sense of a fence post. The sense shifted from a bed of straw to a small mattress and then to a wooden base for goods, a development that happened well after the word first entered English.

Synonyms: palletizing, packaging