Word.ws English Dictionary

pole

/pɒl/UK/pəʊl/

pole noun: originally, a stick; now specifically, a long and slender piece of metal or (especially) wood, used for various construction or support purposes. Also the ellipsis of pole position.

Noun (1)

pole (plural poles)

  1. Originally, a stick; now specifically, a long and slender piece of metal or (especially) wood, used for various construction or support purposes.
    • For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
    • There she was, walking around with an IV pole, and we were only told that "Mommy isn't feeling so well, so she has to be connected to a special soda."2019, Abby Chava Stein, Becoming Eve, Seal Press, page 26
  2. A construction by which an animal is harnessed to a carriage.
  3. A type of basic fishing rod.
  4. A long sports implement used for pole-vaulting; now made of glassfiber or carbon fiber, formerly also metal, bamboo and wood have been used.
  5. (slang, spotting) A telescope used to identify birds, aeroplanes or wildlife.
  6. (historical) A unit of length, equal to a rod (¹⁄₄ chain or 5+¹⁄₂ yards).
    Synonyms:
    rod
  7. (US, slang, African-American Vernacular) A rifle.
  8. (slang, vulgar) A penis.
  9. (slang) A wicket, especially in the context of the number of wickets taken by a particular bowler.
    • Only three cricketers have taken all 10 poles in a Test innings.

Verb (1)

pole (third-person singular simple present poles, present participle poling, simple past and past participle poled)

  1. To propel by pushing with poles, to push with a pole.
    • Huck Finn poled that raft southward down the Mississippi because going northward against the current was too much work.
  2. To identify something quite precisely using a telescope.
    • He poled off the serial of the Gulfstream to confirm its identity.
  3. (transitive) To furnish with poles for support.
    • to pole beans or hops
  4. (transitive) To convey on poles.
    • to pole hay into a barn
  5. (transitive) To stir, as molten glass, with a pole.
  6. (transitive) To strike (the ball) very hard.
    • Long had poled the ball into the lower deck in right center.2007, Tony Silvia, Baseball Over the Air
  7. (transitive) To treat (copper) by blowing natural gas or other reducing agent through the molten oxide, burning off the oxygen.
    • to pole copper

Noun (2)

pole (plural poles)

  1. Either of the two points on the earth's surface around which it rotates; also, similar points on any other rotating object.
  2. A point of magnetic focus, especially each of the two opposing such points of a magnet (designated north and south).
  3. (broadly, figuratively) Any of a small set of extremes; especially, either of two extremes that are possible or available.
    • In discussing alternatives to the polar extremes, Professor Nguyen mentioned two poles of a filthy floor versus a sterile surgical site.
    • Genuine music is the offspring of profound emotion: of exaltation, pain, or joy. Music produced outside of a situation between these poles of the human heart is of banal character, bloodless, watery.1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 194
  4. A fixed point relative to other points or lines.
  5. A contact on an electrical device (such as a battery) at which electric current enters or leaves.
  6. For a meromorphic function f(z), any point a for which f(z)→∞ as z→a.
    • The function f(z)#61;#92;frac#123;1#125;#123;z-3#125; has a single pole at z#61;3.
  7. (obsolete) The firmament; the sky.
    • And the slope sun his upward beam / Shoots against the dusky pole,1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey...
  8. Either of the states that characterize a bipolar disorder.

Verb (2)

pole (third-person singular simple present poles, present participle poling, simple past and past participle poled)

  1. (transitive) To induce piezoelectricity in (a substance) by aligning the dipoles.

Noun (3) capitalized: Pole

Pole (plural Poles)

  1. A person from Poland or of Polish descent.
    • The Poles are well dressed, handsome, and somehow on a larger scale than their surroundings, as if they have grown since the war and Poland itself has not.1989 May, Priit J. Vesilind, “The Baltic: Arena of Power”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 626
    Synonyms:
    Polander

Proper noun capitalized: Pole

Pole

  1. A surname.

Also used as

pole is also the ellipsis of pole position.

pole meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

pole in Hindi

long and slender object for construction or support
बल्ली ballī
magnetic point
ध्रुव dhruv, क़ुतुब qutub
extreme of an axis
छोर chor

pole in Tamil

கம்பம்

pole in Urdu

magnetic point
قطب qutub

pole in Bengali

long and slender object for construction or support
কুতুব kutub
magnetic point
মেরু meru, কুতুব kutub
extreme of an axis
মেরু meru, ধ্রুব dhrub, কুতুব kutub
More languagesFewer languages
pole in Telugu
గడ కర్ర gaḍa karra
pole in Malayalam
ധ്രുവം
pole in Gujarati
ધ્રુવ
pole in Pashto
قطب
pole in Tagalog
taluktok, polo
pole in Arabic
عَمُود ʕamūd, قُطْب quṭb, زَانَة zāna
pole in Malay
galah, tiang, kutub
pole in Indonesian
kutub
pole in Persian
قطب qotb, نشین nešin
pole in Thai
เสา sǎo, ขั้ว kûua, ขั้วโลก kûua-lôok
pole in Vietnamese
cực
pole in Myanmar
ပိုစွန်း puicwan:

Examples of pole in a sentence

  • The flag pole, which is 20 feet high, was hoisted by a six-foot tall man.
  • Vines wind round a pole. The river winds through the plain.
  • You should short the poles of the capacitor to discharge it before you work on it.

All 40 example sentences with pole

Synonyms of pole

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of pole

Forms of pole

Noun
pluralpoles
pluralPoles
Verb
third-person singular presentpoles
present participlepoling
past participlepoled
pastpoled
Proper noun
alternative form (archaic)de la Pole

Plural of pole: poles

Origin of pole

English poleFrom Middle English pole, pal, from Old English pāl (“a pole, stake, post; a kind of hoe or spade”), from Proto-West Germanic *pāl (“pole”), from Latin pālus (“stake, pale, prop, stay”), perhaps from Old Latin *paxlos, from Proto-Italic *pākslos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to nail, fasten”). Doublet of peel, pale, and palus. Cognates Cognate with Scots pale, paill (“stake, pale”), North Frisian pul, pil (“stake, pale”), Saterland Frisian Pool (“pole”), West Frisian poal (“pole”), Dutch paal (“pole”), German Pfahl (“pile, stake, post, pole”), Danish pæl (“pole”), Swedish påle (“pole”), Icelandic páll (“hoe, spade, pale”), Old English fæc (“space of time, while, division, interval; lustrum”).

From Middle French pole, pôle, from Latin polus, from Ancient Greek πόλος (pólos, “axis of rotation”).

From German Pole.

Words formed from pole

Phrases with pole

134 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with pole

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about pole

What does pole mean?
Pole means originally, a stick; now specifically, a long and slender piece of metal or (especially) wood, used for various construction or support purposes.
What is pole in Hindi?
Pole in Hindi is बल्ली (ballī), ध्रुव (dhruv), क़ुतुब (qutub). See Pole meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is pole?
Pole can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce pole?
Pole is pronounced /pəʊl/ (UK).
What is the plural of pole?
The plural of pole is poles.

Words near pole in the dictionary

  1. polderizes
  2. polderizing
  3. polders
  4. poldervaartite
  5. poldine
  6. pole
  7. pole arctic
  8. pole barn
  9. pole barns
  10. pole bean
  11. pole beans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pole (page history and authors); Pole (page history and authors); pole (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pole (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); pole (Gujarati, 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.

Last updated:

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

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