When rankle was first used in
English, it meant "to fester," and that meaning is related to French
words referring to a sore and tracing to Latin dracunculus. The Latin is from
draco, the word for a serpent and the source of English's dragon. The
transition from serpents to sores is apparently from people associating the
appearance of certain ulcers or tumors to small serpents.
Palisade comes from Latin palus, meaning "stake." The word originally applied to one of a series of stakes set in a row to form an enclosure or fortification. In time, its meaning was extended to a fence of stakes and, by association, to stretches of steep cliffs bordering a river.
