Etymology Dictionary

GALL (1),  bile, bitterness.  (E.)   M. E. galle; P. Plowman, B. xvi. 155.—O. Northumb. galla, A. S. gealla; Matt. xxvii. 34. + Du. gal. + Icel. gall. + Swed. galla. + Dan. galde (with excrescent d ). + G. galle. + Lat. fel. + Gk. χολή.   β. From the same root as Gk. χλωρός, greenish, Lat. heluus, yellowish, and E. yellow and green; so that gall was named from its yellowish colour; Curtius, i. 250.   See Green, Gold, and Yellow.   Der. gall-bladder.

GALL (2),  to rub a sore place, to vex.  (F.,—L.)   'Let the galled jade wince;' Hamlet, iii. 2. 253.   M. E. gallen.   'The hors...was...galled upon the bak;' Gower, C. A. ii. 46.—O. F. galler, 'to gall, fret, itch, rub;' Cot.—O. F. galle, 'a galling, fretting, itching of the skin;' id. = mod. F. gale, a scab on fruit, properly a hardness of skin, and thence a cutaneous disorder which makes the skin hard.—Lat. callus, hard thick skin; 'found in sense of the itch in medieval Latin;' Brachet.   See Callous.   Der. gall, sb., Chaucer, C. T. 6522.

GALL (3), GALL-NUT,  a vegetable excrescence produced by insects.  (F.,—L.)   In Shak.; 'Though ink be made of gall;'  Cymb. i. I. 101.—O. F. galle, 'the fruit called a gall;' Cot.—Lat. galla, an oak-apple, gall nut.