Gall Meaning
/ɡɔːl/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounImpudence or brazenness; temerity; chutzpah.
nounA gallbladder.
Sentence Examples
For gall bladder surgery, go down this hall and take a right.
Even a nightingale isn't without its gall.
He had the gall to ignore my advice.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
He had the ____ to interrupt the speaker and argue loudly in front of everyone.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He had the ____ to ask for a raise after arriving late to work almost every day this month.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English galle, from Old English ġealla, galla, from Proto-West Germanic *gallā, from Proto-Germanic *gallǭ. The figurative senses (e.g., impudence, brazenness, chutzpah) are related to the literal sense (i.e., bile) via the lasting linguocultural effects of humorism, which governed Western medicine for many centuries before the advent of scientific medicine. Related to Dutch gal, German Galle, Swedish galle, galla, Ancient Greek χολή (kholḗ). Also remotely related with yellow and gold.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"“Durn ye!” he cried. “I’ll lam ye! Get offen here. I knows ye. Yer one o’ that gang o’ bums that come here last night, an’ now you got the gall to come back beggin’ for food, eh? I’ll lam ye!” and he raised the gun to his shoulder."
— 1917, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 6, in The Oakdale Affair:
"Prichard, while keeping school, had the unmitigated gall to teach Greek, although he had never studied the subject."
— 1891, Exercises of class day of the senior class, Tuesday, June 23, 1891, page 33:
"In July 1938, that was sufficient to call down contempt and hatred on us, and brand us as men of unmitigated gall."
— 1944, Teheran: Our Path in War and Peace, page 55:
"It requires the cunning of a chess master, the planning of a field marshal, the adroitness and polish of a premier of France, or, failing these, the sheer, unmitigated gall of your door-to-door salesman."
— 1962, How to live with a calculating cat, page 47:
""Also, as apologetic as you were for occupying my time, which I had hoped to spend with my daughter, you used about twice as many words as you needed to, and wasted an entire paragraph complaining about your colleagues. I went back to the SCP-079 file — Supervisor Valis would have had the thing decommissioned years ago if it weren't for your blatant technofetishism. Yet, you have the gall to characterize the Foundation's ongoing political interventions and military operations as squabbles.""
— 2022 October 18, Placeholder McD, “SCP-7579 [offset 1]”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 20 Dec 2024:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
He had the ____ to interrupt the speaker and argue loudly in front of everyone.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He had the ____ to ask for a raise after arriving late to work almost every day this month.