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[pohl] /poʊl/

noun
1.
a long, cylindrical, often slender piece of wood, metal, etc.:
a telephone pole; a fishing pole.
2.
Northeastern U.S. a long, tapering piece of wood or other material that extends from the front axle of a vehicle between the animals drawing it.
3.
Nautical.

4.
the lane of a racetrack nearest to the infield; the inside lane.
Compare 1 (def 5).
5.
a unit of length equal to 16½ feet (5 meters); a rod.
6.
a square rod, 30¼ square yards (25.3 sq. m).
verb (used with object), poled, poling.
7.
to furnish with poles.
8.
to push, strike, or propel with a pole:
to pole a raft.
9.
Baseball. to make (an extra-base hit) by batting the ball hard and far:
He poled a triple to deep right-center.
10.
Metallurgy. to stir (molten metal, as copper, tin, or zinc) with poles of green wood so as to produce carbon, which reacts with the oxygen present to effect deoxidation.
verb (used without object), poled, poling.
11.
to propel a boat, raft, etc., with a pole:
to pole down the river.
Idioms
12.
under bare poles,

/pəʊl/
noun
1.
a long slender usually round piece of wood, metal, or other material
2.
the piece of timber on each side of which a pair of carriage horses are hitched
3.
another name for rod (sense 7)
4.
(horse racing, mainly US & Canadian)

5.
(nautical)

6.
(nautical) under bare poles, (of a sailing vessel) with no sails set
7.
(Brit & Austral, NZ, informal) up the pole

verb
8.
(transitive) to strike or push with a pole
9.
(transitive)

10.
(transitive) to deoxidize (a molten metal, esp copper) by stirring it with green wood
11.
to punt (a boat)
/pəʊl/
noun
1.
either of the two antipodal points where the earth’s axis of rotation meets the earth’s surface See also North Pole, South Pole
2.
(astronomy) short for celestial pole
3.
(physics)

4.
(maths) an isolated singularity of an analytical function
5.
(biology)

6.
(physiol) the point on a neuron from which the axon or dendrites project from the cell body
7.
either of two mutually exclusive or opposite actions, opinions, etc
8.
(geometry) the origin in a system of polar or spherical coordinates
9.
any fixed point of reference
10.
poles apart, poles asunder, having widely divergent opinions, tastes, etc
11.
from pole to pole, throughout the entire world
/pəʊl/
noun
1.
a native, inhabitant, or citizen of Poland or a speaker of Polish
/pəʊl/
noun
1.
Reginald. 1500–58, English cardinal; last Roman Catholic archbishop of Canterbury (1556–58)
n.

“stake,” late Old English pal “stake, pole, post,” a general Germanic borrowing (cf. Old Frisian and Old Saxon pal “stake,” Middle Dutch pael, Dutch paal, Old High German pfal, Old Norse pall) from Latin palus “stake” (see pale (n.)).

Racing sense of “inside fence surrounding a course” is from 1851; pole position in auto racing attested from 1904. A ten-foot pole as a metaphoric measure of something one would not touch something (or someone) else with is by 1839, American English. The ten-foot pole was a common tool used to set stakes for fences, etc., and the phrase “Can’t touch de bottom with a ten foot pole” is in the popular old minstrel show song “Camptown Races.”

“I saw her eat.”
“No very unnatural occurrence I should think.”
“But she ate an onion!”
“Right my boy, right, never marry a woman who would touch an onion with a ten foot pole.”
[“The Collegian,” University of Virginia, 1839]

“ends of Earth’s axis,” late 14c., from Old French pole or directly from Latin polus “end of an axis;” also “the sky, the heavens” (a sense sometimes used in English from 16c.), from Greek polos “pivot, axis of a sphere, the sky,” from PIE *kwolo- “turn round,” from root *kwel- (see cycle (n.)).
v.

“to furnish with poles,” 1570s, from pole (n.1). Meaning “to push with a pole” is from 1753. Related: Poled; poling.
n.

“inhabitant or native of Poland,” 1650s, from German Pole, singular of Polen, from Polish Poljane “Poles,” literally “field-dwellers,” from pole “field,” related to Old Church Slavonic polje “field,” from PIE root *pele- (2) “flat, to spread” (see plane (n.1)).

pole (pōl)
n.

pole
(pōl)

Related Terms

beanpole, not touch someone or something with a ten-foot pole
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