Word.ws English Dictionary

po

/pəʊ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Singapore[p˭o]

po noun: a peacock.

Noun (1)

po (plural pos)

  1. (obsolete) A peacock.

Noun (2)

po (plural pos)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, colloquial, dated) A chamberpot.
    • Ma's out, Pa's out, let's talk rude-- Pee, po, belly, bum, drawers!1961, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, “P** P* B**** B** D*******”, in The Bestiary of Flanders & Swann
    • ‘Pos’ or ‘chamber pots’ were provided under the beds.1988, Richard Hoggart, A Local Habitation, 1918-40, Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 67
    Synonyms:
    chamber pot

Noun (3)

po pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only, slang) The police.
    • "Basically it's a celebration of all the gearheads in the area," Rob told him. "Sometimes we get busted by the po, but we always find a new place to show off our rides. Enjoy this lot while we have it."2008, Megan T. White, Rounding the Finish Line, Baltimore, M.D.: PublishAmerica, →ISBN, page 209
    • "'Bout time the po' got here," someone said loud enough for Bree to hear.2009, Debra Webb, Secrets in Four Corners, Toronto, Ont. […]: Harlequin, →ISBN, page 155

Adjective (1)

po (not comparable)

  1. (Singapore, colloquial) Thinner; with more water added to dilute it.

Noun (4) capitalized: PO

PO (plural POs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of post office.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of purchase order.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of police officer.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of probation officer.
    • I gotta take a whiz test to my PO / I know I failed 'cause I done smoked major weed, bro1995, “I Got 5 on It”, in Operation Stackola, performed by Luniz
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of petty officer.
  6. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of principal officer.
  7. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of playoff.
  8. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of project officer.

Adverb capitalized: PO

PO (not comparable)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of per os (“by mouth, orally”).
    Antonyms:
    NPO, parenterally

Adjective (2) capitalized: PO

PO (not comparable)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of peroral.

Proper noun capitalized: Po

the Po

  1. The longest river in Italy, which flows 652 kilometers eastward to the Adriatic Sea near Venice.

po meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

po in Hindi

पो

po in Tamil

பொ

po in Marathi

पो

po in Urdu

پو, پی او
More languagesFewer languages
po in Bengali
পো, পিও
po in Telugu
పో, పొ, పిఓ
po in Kannada
ಪೋ, ಪೊ
po in Punjabi
ਪੋ
po in Gujarati
પો
po in Odia
ପୋ
po in Nepali
पो

Examples of po in a sentence

  • There are always several spitoons & pos [chamber pots] about the room & a loathesome smell of consumption, which I expect I shall catch.1989, Leonard Woolf, edited by Frederic Spotts, Letters of Leonard Woolf, page 86:
  • Shaking the last few drops from off the end he looked down in surprise at the great head of steam that brimmed above the po, belatedly apprised of just how icy the October garret was.2016, Alan Moore, Jerusalem, Liveright, published 2016, page 44:
  • Now, one of the rules I had—this is another reason why certain police probably respected us dudes—when it was hot, when I saw certain po, we would shut it down.2018, U-God [Lamont Hawkins], Raw: My Journey Into the Wu-Tang, New York, N.Y.: Picador, →ISBN, page 89:

All 21 example sentences with po

Synonyms of po

Antonyms

Forms of po

Noun
pluralpos
alternative formpo'
pluralPOs
Adjective
alternative formpoh

Origin of po

From Middle English po (found also in pocock), from Old English pāwa, pēa (“peacock”), from Proto-Germanic *pāwô (“peacock”), from Latin pāvō. Cognate with Dutch pauw, German Pfau. See also peacock.

A diminutive of pot.

Clipping of police.

Words formed from po

Phrases with po

Words that rhyme with po

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about po

What does po mean?
Po means a peacock.
What is po in Hindi?
Po in Hindi is पो. See Po meaning in Hindi.
How do you use po in a sentence?
There are always several spitoons & pos [chamber pots] about the room & a loathesome smell of consumption, which I expect I shall catch.
What part of speech is po?
Po can be a noun, an adjective, an adverb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce po?
Po is pronounced /pəʊ/.
What is the plural of po?
The plural of po is pos.

Words near po in the dictionary

  1. pntrs.
  2. Pnuelian
  3. PNV
  4. PNW
  5. Pnyx
  6. po
  7. PO Box
  8. PO boxes
  9. po po
  10. po pos
  11. Po Toi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: po (page history and authors); PO (page history and authors); Po (page history and authors); po (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); po (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-po.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Po.wav.

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