polescreen

Noun

polescreen (plural polescreens)

1. (historical) A screen mounted on a pole.
   • The most prized of the furnishings perhaps is the polescreen in the front parlor, whose needlepoint is dated the second half of the seventeenth century .1949, The Antiquarian, page 8
   • The engravings, by J.-M. Delattre, were framed to make an attractive pair of Neoclassical shield-shaped pole-screens (sold by Sotheby's 18 May 1990, lot 202) around 1785.1992, Malise Forbes Adam, Mary Mauchline, edited by Wendy Wassyng Roworth, Angelica Kauffman, Reaktion Books, published 1992, page 130
2. A style of firescreen consisting of sliding panels mounted on upright poles.
   • The eighteenth-century designer Thomas Sheraton once qualified the purpose of a polescreen or firescreen as " a piece of furniture to shelter the face or legs from the fire . "1995, Joan Barzilay Freund, Masterpieces of Americana, page 33
   • The polescreen, with a sliding screen on a turned upright pole, four to five feet tall, supported on a tripod base, was also known as a screenstick in the late 17th century.1997, Joanna Banham, Encyclopedia of Interior Design