pallet

Everyday

1. A flat wooden or plastic platform on which goods are stacked so that a forklift truck can lift and move them. tree →
2. A simple straw bed or thin mattress on the floor (old use, in stories). tree →
3. A flat wooden tool used by potters (less common). tree →

In the lessons

In everyday life and shops, goods arrive on pallets in lorries and warehouses. People also make garden furniture out of old pallets. In history stories, a poor person or prisoner sleeps on a pallet of straw.

Examples

• The forklift lifted a pallet of bricks. tree →
• The lorry was full of pallets of tinned beans. tree →
• We built a bug hotel from an old pallet. tree →
• The prisoner slept on a pallet of straw. tree →
• Each pallet holds 40 boxes. tree →
• Mind your fingers near the wooden pallets. tree →

Note

Countable: pallet, pallets. Homophones: palette (paints) and palate (roof of the mouth). In maths, pallets are about multiplication: if each pallet holds 40 boxes, 6 pallets hold 6 x 40 = 240 boxes.