Word.ws English Dictionary

totem pole

totem pole noun: a Native American sculpture found in the Pacific Northwest, made by carving trees, and usually displaying symbolic figures that represent clan lineage, cultural beliefs, or historical events.

totem pole: a Native American sculpture found in the Pacific Northwest, made by carving trees, and usually...
Image: Peter Graham, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

totem pole (plural totem poles)

  1. (sculpture) A Native American sculpture found in the Pacific Northwest, made by carving trees, and usually displaying symbolic figures that represent clan lineage, cultural beliefs, or historical events.
    • Many visitors to France will go back to the States after a three months' fling of night spots and sight-seeing without remarking that can-can girls and champagne play about the same part in French life today as the tom-tom and totem pole in American life.1949 June 26, Ann Hightower, “If Paris Is Can-Can, New York Is Tom-Tom”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, page 167
  2. (figuratively) A hierarchy or ranking of importance.
    • The teacher's pet was fairly high on the class totem pole.

totem pole meaning in Arabic

totem pole in Arabic

sculpture
عَمُود رَمْز ʕamūd ramz

Forms of totem pole

pluraltotem poles

Words formed from totem pole

Questions about totem pole

What does totem pole mean?
Totem pole means a Native American sculpture found in the Pacific Northwest, made by carving trees, and usually displaying symbolic figures that represent clan lineage, cultural beliefs, or historical events.
What is totem pole in Arabic?
Totem pole in Arabic is عَمُود رَمْز (ʕamūd ramz). See Totem pole meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is totem pole?
Totem pole is a noun.
What is the plural of totem pole?
The plural of totem pole is totem poles.

Words near totem pole in the dictionary

  1. toted up
  2. toteless
  3. totem
  4. totem kin
  5. totem kins
  6. totem pole
  7. totem poles
  8. totem stone
  9. totem stones
  10. totem tennis
  11. totemic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: totem pole (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-totem pole.wav.

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