Search

[hohl] /hoʊl/

noun
1.
an opening through something; gap; aperture:
a hole in the roof; a hole in my sock.
2.
a hollow place in a solid body or mass; a cavity:
a hole in the ground.
3.
the excavated habitation of an animal; burrow.
4.
a small, dingy, or shabby place:
I couldn’t live in a hole like that.
5.
a place of solitary confinement; dungeon.
6.
an embarrassing position or predicament:
to find oneself in a hole.
7.
a cove or small harbor.
8.
a fault or flaw:
They found serious holes in his reasoning.
9.
a deep, still place in a stream:
a swimming hole.
10.
Sports.

11.
Golf.

12.
Informal. opening; slot:
The radio program was scheduled for the p.m. hole. We need an experienced person to fill a hole in our accounting department.
13.
Metalworking. (in wire drawing) one reduction of a section.
14.
Electronics. a mobile vacancy in the electronic structure of a semiconductor that acts as a positive charge carrier and has equivalent mass.
15.
Aeronautics. an air pocket that causes a plane or other aircraft to drop suddenly.
verb (used with object), holed, holing.
16.
to make a hole or holes in.
17.
to put or drive into a hole.
18.
Golf. to hit the ball into (a hole).
19.
to bore (a tunnel, passage, etc.).
verb (used without object), holed, holing.
20.
to make a hole or holes.
Verb phrases
21.
hole out, Golf. to strike the ball into a hole:
He holed out in five, one over par.
22.
hole up,

Idioms
23.
burn a hole in one’s pocket, to urge one to spend money quickly:
His inheritance was burning a hole in his pocket.
24.
hole in the wall, a small or confining place, especially one that is dingy, shabby, or out-of-the-way:
Their first shop was a real hole in the wall.
25.
in a / the hole,

26.
make a hole in, to take a large part of:
A large bill from the dentist made a hole in her savings.
27.
pick a hole / holes in, to find a fault or flaw in:
As soon as I presented my argument, he began to pick holes in it.
Also, poke a hole/holes in.
/ˈhəʊlɪ/
adjective holeyer, holeyest
1.
full of holes
/həʊl/
noun
1.
an area hollowed out in a solid
2.
an opening made in or through something
3.
an animal’s hiding place or burrow
4.
(informal) an unattractive place, such as a town or a dwelling
5.
(informal) a cell or dungeon
6.
(US, informal) a small anchorage
7.
a fault (esp in the phrase pick holes in)
8.
(slang) a difficult and embarrassing situation
9.
the cavity in various games into which the ball must be thrust
10.
(on a golf course)

11.
(physics)

12.
in holes, so worn as to be full of holes: his socks were in holes
13.
(mainly US) in the hole

14.
make a hole in, to consume or use a great amount of (food, drink, money, etc): to make a hole in a bottle of brandy
verb
15.
to make a hole or holes in (something)
16.
(golf) when intr, often foll by out. to hit (the ball) into the hole
adj.

late 14c., from hole + -y (2). The -e- retained so the eye may distinguish it from holy.
n.

Old English hol “orifice, hollow place, cave, perforation,” from Proto-Germanic *hul (cf. Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German hol, Middle Dutch hool, Old Norse holr, German hohl “hollow,” Gothic us-hulon “to hollow out”), from PIE root *kel- (see cell).

As a contemptuous word for “small dingy lodging or abode” it is attested from 1610s. Meaning “a fix, scrape, mess” is from 1760. Obscene slang use for “vulva” is implied from mid-14c. Hole in the wall “small and unpretentious place” is from 1822; to hole up first recorded 1875. To need (something) like a hole in the head, applied to something useless or detrimental, first recorded 1944 in entertainment publications, probably a translation of a Yiddish expression, cf. ich darf es vi a loch in kop.
v.

“to make a hole,” Old English holian “to hollow out, scoop out” (see hole (n.)). Related: Holed; holing.
hole
(hōl)
A gap, usually the valence band of an insulator or semiconductor, that would normally be filled with one electron. If an electron accelerated by a voltage moves into a gap, it leaves a gap behind it, and in this way the hole itself appears to move through the substance. Even though holes are in fact the absence of a negatively charged particle (an electron), they can be treated theoretically as positively charged particles, whose motion gives rise to electric current.

noun

Related Terms

ace in the hole, big hole, brown, bunghole, cornhole, in a hole, in the hole, the nineteenth hole, not know one’s ass from one’s elbow, rathole