poll

Noun (1)

poll (plural polls)

1. A survey of people, usually statistically analyzed to gauge wider public opinion.

   Synonyms:

   survey

2. A formal vote held in order to ascertain the most popular choice.
   • The student council had a poll to see what people want served in the cafeteria.
   • All soldiers quartered in place are to remove […] and not to return till one day after the poll is ended.1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   vote, election

3. A polling place (usually as plural, polling places).
   • The polls close at 8 p.m.
4. The result of the voting, the total number of votes recorded.
5. (now rare outside veterinary medicine contexts) The head, particularly the scalp or pate upon which hair (normally) grows.
   • […]the doctor, as if to hear better, had taken off his powdered wig, and sat there, looking very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll.1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC
   • And you might perceive the president and general manager, Mr. R. G. Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office room dictating letters..1908, O. Henry, A Tempered Wind

   Synonyms:

   scalp

6. A mass of people, a mob or muster, considered as a head count.
   • We are the greater poll, and in true fear
     They gave us our demands.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
   • The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll.c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
7. The broad or butt end of an axe or a hammer.
8. The pollard or European chub, a kind of fish.

Verb

poll (third-person singular simple present polls, present participle polling, simple past and past participle polled)

1. (transitive) To take, record the votes of (an electorate).
2. (transitive) To solicit mock votes from (a person or group).
3. (intransitive) To vote at an election.
   • Mr. Millbank's friends were not disheartened, as it was known that the leading members of Mr. Rigby's Committee had polled; whereas his opponent's were principally reserved.1844, B[enjamin] Disraeli, chapter IV, in Coningsby; or, The New Generation. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, book V, page 271
4. To register or deposit, as a vote; to elicit or call forth, as votes or voters.
   • He polled a hundred votes more than his opponent.
   • poll for points of faith his trusty vote1717, Thomas Tickell, An Epistle from a Lady in England to a Gentleman at Avignon
5. To cut off; to remove by clipping, shearing, etc.; to mow or crop.
   • to poll the hair; to poll wool; to poll grass
   • Who, as he polled off his dart's head, so sure he had decreed
     That all the counsels of their war he would poll off like it.[1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer...
6. (transitive) To cut the hair of (a creature).
   • when he [Absalom] polled his head1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Bible Samuel/#14 2 Samuel:14–26
   • His death did so grieve them that they polled themselves; they clipped off their horse and mule's hairs.1579-1603, Thomas North, Plutarch's Lives
7. (transitive) To remove the horns of (an animal).
8. To remove the top or end of; to clip; to lop.
   • to poll a tree
9. (transitive) To (repeatedly) request the status of something (such as a computer or printer on a network).
   • The network hub polled the department’s computers to determine which ones could still respond.
10. (intransitive) To be judged in a poll.
    • The election was a resounding defeat for Robert McCartney who polled badly in the six constituencies he contested and even lost his own Assembly seat in North Down.2008, Joanne McEvoy, The politics of Northern Ireland, page 171
11. (obsolete) To extort from; to plunder; to strip. Especially in conjunction with pill for emphasis.
    • they slew Julius Caesar, who neither pilled nor polled the country but only was a favorer and suborner of all them that did rob and spoil, by his countenance and authority.1579, Thomas North, Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Life of Brutus, paragraph 35
    • Which pols and pils the poore in piteous wize1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 6
12. To impose a tax upon.

Adjective

poll

1. Bred without horns, and thus hornless.
   • Poll Hereford
   • Red Poll cows

Noun (2)

UK/pɒl/

poll (plural polls)

1. A pet parrot.

Noun (3)

IPA/pɒl/

poll (plural polls)

1. (UK, dated, Cambridge University) One who does not try for honors at university, but is content to take a degree merely; a passman.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Poll

US/pɑl/UK/pɒl/

Poll

1. A diminutive of the female given name Mary.
   • "A gentleman, please Sir," said the blushing Mary, (or Poll as some unrespective and light-minded persons have misnamed her), and the gentleman entered.1833 The Pilgrim Brothers [signed Timotheus Scribewell], Romances of Chivalric Ages, H. Cope, page iv
2. A common pet name for a parrot.

Noun (4) capitalized: Poll

US/pɑl/UK/pɒl/

Poll (plural Polls)

1. (UK, obsolete, slang) A disreputable woman.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Poll

Poll

1. A surname transferred from the given name.