Word.ws English Dictionary

bole

UK/bəʊl//bol/

bole noun: the trunk or stem of a tree. Also the alternative form of boll.

bole: the trunk or stem of a tree
Image: Tom elm, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

bole (plural boles)

  1. The trunk or stem of a tree.
    • Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean / Upon the dusky brushwood underneath / Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green, / New from its silken sheath.1842, Alfred Tennyson, “A Dream of Fair Women”, in Poems, volume 1, page 188
    • A fine powder filled the air and caressed the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC

Noun (2)

bole (countable and uncountable, plural boles)

  1. Any of several varieties of friable earthy clay, usually coloured red by iron oxide, and composed essentially of hydrous silicates of alumina, or more rarely of magnesia.
    • Good Iznik has strong colours well-contained within their outlines and a very clean, clear white. The red colour, made with Armenian bole (an earthy clay) should be thick and proud of the surface.2018 April 14, “8 things to know about İznik pottery”, in Christie's
  2. The shade of reddish brown which resembles this clay.
  3. (obsolete) A bolus; a dose.
    • […]or else[…]the churches were very incurious to swallow such a bole, if no pretension could have been reasonably made for their justification.1649, Jeremy Taylor, “An Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy Against the Pretence of the Spirit”, in Charles Page Eden, editor, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D....

Noun (3)

bole (plural boles)

  1. (Scotland) An aperture with a shutter in the wall of a house, to admit air or light.
    • "Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her daughter-in-law, “open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the right Lord Geraldin[…].1816, Walter Scott, The Antiquary, Adam and Charles Black, published 1862, page 220
  2. (Scotland) A small closet.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Bole

Bole

  1. A Chadic language native to Nigeria.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Bole

Bole

  1. A county-level city of Bortala prefecture, Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
    • As September gets under way, the fields and open country of southern Xinjiang, stretching from Turpan through Korla, Aksu and Kashi to Hotan, as well as the northern country areas from Manas and Shihu westwards across to Bole (Bortala), are all abloom with silvery, snow-white blossoms.1989, 郑平 [Zheng Ping], 洛安吉 [Luo Anji], transl., 新疆风物志 [Xinjiang : the Land and the People], Beijing: New World Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 221
    • "We are destined to become a very important region," said Hua Dingchuan, a trade official in Bole, a city that 10 years ago had virtually no private cars, and now is as densely developed and busy as any American suburb.[…]
    • Bole, a city in Xinjiang Province, is now densely developed and has the conveniences of modern Chinese life.2004 March 28, Howard W. French, “China Moves Toward Another West: Central Asia”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 May 2015, World

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Bole

Bole

  1. A town in Ghana.

Proper noun (4) capitalized: Bole

Bole

  1. A village and civil parish of Nottinghamshire, England.

Proper noun (5) capitalized: Bole

Bole (plural Boles)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

bole is also the alternative form of boll.

bole meaning in Indonesian

bole in Indonesian

the trunk or stem of a tree
batang

Forms of bole

Noun
pluralboles
Proper noun
alternative formPo-lo
pluralBoles

Origin of bole

From Middle English bole, from Old Norse bolr, akin to Danish bul and German Bohle (“plank”). See also bulwark (“defensive wall”).

From Ancient Greek βῶλος (bôlos, “clod or lump of earth”): compare French bol. Doublet of bolus.

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 博樂 /博乐 (Bólè).

Words formed from bole

Words that rhyme with bole

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bole

What does bole mean?
Bole means the trunk or stem of a tree.
What is bole in Indonesian?
Bole in Indonesian is batang. See Bole meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is bole?
Bole can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bole?
Bole is pronounced /bol/ (US).
What is the plural of bole?
The plural of bole is boles.

Words near bole in the dictionary

  1. Bolduc
  2. Bolducs
  3. Boldur
  4. Boldurești
  5. boldyrevite
  6. bole
  7. boleadora
  8. boleadoras
  9. bolection
  10. bolectioned
  11. bolections

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bole (page history and authors); Bole (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bowl.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.