Other forms: impaled, impaling, impales
To impale is to pierce right through with something sharp. Impaled on a railing, impale the meat, impaled by the fall.
The piercing goes through rather than into, which is what makes it so grim. It is a word for accidents and for historical cruelty, and rarely for anything else. In heraldry, to impale is to place two coats of arms side by side on one shield, which is a completely separate sense from the same Latin word for a stake.
1verbimpaleTo pierce right through with something sharp.
“He fell from the ladder and was nearly impaled on the garden railings.”
impale is a piercing.
Medieval Latin impalare is in plus palus, a stake. Pale, meaning a fence stake, and palisade come from the same stake.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₂ǵ-
Latin
palus
Medieval Latin
impālō
English, today
impale
From Middle French -, from Medieval Latin impālō, from Latin palus, whence also pale#Noun_2.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA