pallet [LME] The first sense recorded for this was ‘a flat wooden blade with a handle’ used to shape clay or plaster: it comes from French palette ‘little blade’, from Latin pala ‘spade’ (related to palus ‘stake’, see pale). The pallet used with a forklift truck is from the early 20th century. The French form was adopted directly in the early 17th century for the flat artist’s palette on which to mix colours, with the sense of ‘range of colours’ developing in the late 18th century.