See Also: FACIAL COLOR, GRAY, RED, WHITE

1. Pale as cardboard —Paige Mitchell
2. Pale as white wine —Sir Kenelm Digby
3. Blanch like conscious guilt personified —Charlotte Brontë
4. Bleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus —Herman Melville
5. A face like paper —J. B. Priestly
6. Face like parchment —G. K. Chesterton
7. (His long, pendulous) face looked as if it had been dusted with white talc —Aharon Megged
8. Face … pale as a Chinese mandarin’s —Nadine Gordimer
9. Face … pale as a dead man’s —Ivan Turgenev
10. Face … pale as a fish —T. Coraghessan Boyle
11. Face, pallid and simmering like a milk pudding over a slow flame —Julia O’Faolain
12. His waxy pallor was touched along the underside of his jaw with acne, like two brush burns —John Updike
13. Look [pale] like Yom Kippur before sunset —Isaac Bashevis Singer
14. Pale as a silkfish —Diane Ackerman
15. Pale and dirty as a pulled root —George Garrett
16. Pale as a birch —Louise Erdrich
17. (A scar) pale as a fishgut —Davis Grubb
18. Pale as a ghost with pernicious anemia —Anon

    A twist on the cliche, “Pale as a ghost.”

19. Pale as a hyacinth grown in a cellar —Edith Wharton
20. (Looking as) pale as a magnolia blossom —Sarah Bird
21. Pale as a primrose —William Shakespeare
22. Pale [after donating a lot of blood] as a princess after a date with Dracula —Kenzaburo Oë
23. Pale as a prisoner —Carlos Baker
24. (Always cool and) pale as a root —Jayne Anne Phillips
25. Pale as a shell —James Wright
26. Pale as a smooth-sculptured stone —John Keats
27. Pale as a white rose —Nathaniel Hawthorne
28. Pale as bleached clay —Z. Vance Wilson
29. Pale as candles —Reynolds Price

    A more specific version by McKinlay Kantor is “Pale as a tallow candle.”

30. Pale as china —Sylvia Plath
31. (The desert looks) pale as death —Henry Chettle

    According to Stevenson’s Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous Phrases, Chettle was the first to use the simile in his seventeenth century play, Hoffman. The earliest linkage to the complexion is variously attributed to Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering, Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge and Henry James’ The Madonna of the Future.

32. Pale as distemper —Miles Gibson
33. Pale as his shirt —William Shakespeare
34. Pale as ivory —Ouida
35. Pale as junket —Christina Stead
36. Pale as milk —William Shakespeare

    The similes from masters like the Bard are often used “as is” or with minor additions such as “Pale as cold milk” seen in Davis Grubb’s novel, The Golden Sickle.

37. (Face) pale as sand —Stevie Smith
38. Pale as straw —William Evans
39. Pale as the bottom of a plate —Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
40. Pale … as the mist that hangs over the river —Oscar Wilde
41. Pale as the soap in the dish —Jean Thompson
42. Pale as the tenant of a tomb —Edgar Allen Poe
43. Pale as waxworks —Maxine Kumin
44. Paler than ashes —Algernon Charles Swinburne
45. Paler than grass in summer —Algernon Charles Swinburne
46. (Thighs) pale and soft as snow —Lyn Lifshin

    See Also: SOFTNESS

47. So white she was almost transparent —Jonathan Gash
48. The transparent pallor of her skin was luminous like a sea-shell in green shadow of the pine-trees —Elinor Wylie
49. Turned white as a tablecloth —Rudyard Kipling
50. Wan as the Polar snows —Stephen Vincent Benét