Word.ws English Dictionary

totem poles

totem poles is the plural of totem pole.

Meaning of totem pole

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.

Questions about totem poles

What is totem poles the plural of?
Totem poles is the plural of totem pole.

Words near totem poles in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: totem poles (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “totem poles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/totem_poles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.