Etymology: Old English gealla, weak masculine, agrees in meaning with Old Saxon galia (feminine), Middle Dutch galle (feminine), (Dutch gal feminine), Old High German galla (feminine), (Middle High German and German galle, feminine), and Old Norse gall strong neuter (but Swedish galle (masculine), galla (feminine), Danish galde com.) < Old Germanic types *gallo^m, gallon-, -ôn- < pre-Germanic *gholno-. The pre-Germanic root *ghol-, *ghel-, which is represented also in Greek χολή, χόλος, and in Latin fel, is perhaps the same as that of Old English geolo yellow ( < Old Germanic *gel-wo-), Latin helvus, Greek χλωρός, the gall being thus named from its colour.

Etymology: Old English gealla weak masculine, a sore on a horse, corresponds in meaning to Middle Swedish galle weak masculine, Middle Low German, Middle High German, modern German galle (feminine), Dutch gal feminine; in German and Dutch the word has or has had (see Grimm Wb. and the Nederl. Woordenb.) the senses ‘pimple or blister generally, barren spot in a field, flaw or rotten place in a rock’, etc. All these words are in the several languages formally identical with those representing gall n.¹, and it seems not unlikely that they may be actually identical; the notion of ‘venom’ (gall n.¹ 5) passes easily into that of ‘envenomed sore’ (compare felon n.²); the other senses illustrated below may be explained as referring to the gall as a part of the carcass which has to be removed as useless and offensive. The Old Norse and Middle Swedish galle weak masculine, ‘fault, defect’ (in phrases equivalent to ‘without gall’), seems to admit of the same explanation. It is, however, probable that words of different etymology have influenced the sense-development in the English and other Germanic languages. In the Romanic languages the word for gall n.³ (French galle , Italian gala , Spanish agalla ) was used for a swelling on the fetlock of a horse (= German floszgalle , windgalle , English windgall n.¹), and German writers of the 16th cent. argue that the word ought, being a transferred use of galle gall-nut, to be limited to this specific meaning. In English the word seems to have been influenced (through gall v.¹) by Old French galler , galer to rub, scratch, gall: possibly also by French gale (feminine), itch, scurf, scab (also, flaw in cloth, whence Dutch gaal ); the source of these words is unknown, one suggestion being that they are derived < Latin galla gall n.³

Etymology: < French galle = Italian gala, Spanish galla (in Minsheu galha) < Latin galla the oak-apple, gall-nut; Spanish has also agalla.

Etymology: < gall n.²; apparently originally a back-formation < galled adj.²; the sense may have been influenced by association with Old French galler ‘to gall, fret, itch; also, to rub, scrape, scrub, claw, scratch where it itcheth’ (Cotgrave).

Etymology: < gall n.³