Ex. Or, a chief, purpure, in the lower part a fillet, azure.

This ordinary may be charged with a variety of figures, which are
always named after the tincture of the chief.

It may be necessary to inform the reader that, in describing a coat
of arms, the general colour of the shield or the field is first
described, then the honourable ordinaries, their tinctures, then the
object with which they are charged. We shall have to remark more
particularly on the order of describing ordinaries, tinctures, and
charges on coats of arms, when we treat of the rules of heraldry; but
the student might have been confused if this brief direction had been
omitted, as we shall have to describe every shield of arms in the same
order.

The _pale_ is an honourable ordinary, consisting of two perpendicular
lines drawn from the top to the base of the escutcheon, and contains
one third of the width of the field.

[Illustration: Pale]

Ex. Azure, a pale, or.

The pale may be formed of any of the lines before described; it is
then called a _pale engrailed, a pale dancette_, &c.

The pale has a diminutive called the _pallet_, which is one half the
width of the pale.