Gall

(1) Heb. mererah, meaning “bitterness” (Job 16:13); i.e., the bile secreted in the liver. This word is also used of the poison of asps (20:14), and of the vitals, the seat of life (25). (2.) Heb. rosh. In Deut. 32:33 and Job 20:16 it denotes the poison of serpents. In Hos. 10:4 the Hebrew word is rendered “hemlock.” The original probably denotes some bitter, poisonous plant, most probably the poppy, which grows up quickly, and is therefore coupled with wormwood (Deut. 29:18; Jer. 9:15; Lam. 3:19). Comp. Jer. 8:14; 23:15, “water of gall,” Gesenius, “poppy juice;” others, “water of hemlock,” “bitter water.” (3.) Gr. chole (Matt. 27:34), the LXX. translation of the Hebrew rosh in Ps. 69; 21, which foretells our Lord’s sufferings. The drink offered to our Lord was vinegar (made of light wine rendered acid, the common drink of Roman soldiers) “mingled with gall,” or, according to Mark (15:23), “mingled with myrrh;” both expressions meaning the same thing, namely, that the vinegar was made bitter by the infusion of wormwood or some other bitter substance, usually given, according to a merciful custom, as an anodyne to those who were crucified, to render them insensible to pain. Our Lord, knowing this, refuses to drink it. He would take nothing to cloud his faculties or blunt the pain of dying. He chooses to suffer every element of woe in the bitter cup of agony given him by the Father (John 18:11).

GALL, BILE, an animal fluid, of exceedingly bitter taste, secreted by the liver. Ps 69:21. Allusion is made to it in Job 16:13; Job 20:14, Job 20:25; Lam 2:11, and elsewhere. But by the same word, in Ps 69:21, reference is made to the extraction of a very bitter herb, Deut 29:18; Deut 32:32, perhaps hemlock. Hos 10:4. It was so bitter as to be used as a generic term for bitter substances; as sour wine or sour cider, etc., is called "vinegar." Comp. Matt 27:34; Mark 15:23; Acts 8:23. See Myrrh. GAL'LERY a veranda common in Eastern houses. But the word in the A.V. is not a correct translation of the Hebrew, which means, according to the latest researches, the colonnade or else wainscoting. Song 1:17; Zeph 41:15.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. The bitter, alkaline, viscid fluid found in the gall bladder, beneath the liver. It consists of the secretion of the liver, or bile, mixed with that of the mucous membrane of the gall bladder.

2. The gall bladder.

3. Anything extremely bitter; bitterness; rancor. He hath . . . compassed me with gall and travail. Lam. iii. 5. Comedy diverted without gall. Dryden.

4. Impudence; brazen assurance. [Slang] Gall bladder (Anat.), the membranous sac, in which the bile, or gall, is stored up, as secreted by the liver; the cholecystis. See Illust. of Digestive apparatus. -- Gall duct, a duct which conveys bile, as the cystic duct, or the hepatic duct. -- Gall sickness, a remitting bilious fever in the Netherlands. Dunglison. -- Gall of the earth (Bot.), an herbaceous composite plant with variously lobed and cleft leaves, usually the Prenanthes serpentaria.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

An excrescence of any form produced on any part of a plant by insects or their larvae. They are most commonly caused by small Hymenoptera and Diptera which puncture the bark and lay their eggs in the wounds. The larvae live within the galls. Some galls are due to aphids, mites, etc. See Gallnut.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

A wound in the skin made by rubbing.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To impregnate with a decoction of gallnuts. Ure.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

1. To fret and wear away by friction; to hurt or break the skin of by rubbing; to chafe; to injure the surface of by attrition; as, a saddle galls the back of a horse; to gall a mast or a cable. I am loth to gall a new-healed wound. Shak.

2. To fret; to vex; as, to be galled by sarcasm. They that are most galled with my folly, They most must laugh. Shak.

3. To injure; to harass; to annoy; as, the troops were galled by the shot of the enemy. In our wars against the French of old, we used to gall them with our longbows, at a greater distance than they could shoot their arrows. Addison.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To scoff; to jeer. [R.] Shak.