means A thin board or surface, often with a thumb-hole, on which a painter lays out and mixes their colors — and by extension, the particular range of colors an artist or designer works with.

from From the French 'palette,' a little spatula or blade, itself a diminutive of Latin 'pala,' meaning a spade or shovel. So the painter's mixing board is, at root, a tiny shovel — fitting for a tool meant for scooping and smearing pigment. The same 'pala' family gives us 'pallet' (the wooden shipping platform) and 'palate' (the roof of the mouth), three near-identical words that mean wildly different things — a trio that has tormented spellers for centuries.