Word.ws English Dictionary

vole

/vəʊl/US/voʊl/

vole noun: any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini, Clethrionomyini, Pliomyini, Phenacomyini and Prometheomyini.

vole: any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini,...
Image: Original by Soebe, edited by Fashionslide, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

vole (plural voles)

  1. Any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini, Clethrionomyini, Pliomyini, Phenacomyini and Prometheomyini.

Noun (2)

vole (plural voles)

  1. (archaic) A deal in a card game, écarté, that draws all the tricks.
    • Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.1731, Jonathan Swift, Verses on the Death of Dr Swift
    • With humble curate can I now retire,
      (While good Sir Peter boozes with the squire,)
      And at backgammon mortify my soul,
      That pants for loo, or flutters at a vole?1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Epilogue

Verb

vole (third-person singular simple present voles, present participle voling, simple past and past participle voled)

  1. (archaic, intransitive) To win all the tricks by a vole.
    • no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising Courtier will have toll.1717, Alexander Pope, “The Fourth Satire of Dr. John Donne”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], →OCLC

vole meaning in Tamil, Malay, Indonesian and Persian

vole in Tamil

இதுவும் ஒரு சிற்றினம் ஆகும்

vole in Malay

small rodents of the subfamily Arvicolinae
tikus padang

vole in Indonesian

small rodents of the subfamily Arvicolinae
tikus padang

vole in Persian

small rodents of the subfamily Arvicolinae
ول vol
More languagesFewer languages
vole in Vietnamese
chuột đồng

Forms of vole

Noun
pluralvoles
Verb
third-person singular presentvoles
present participlevoling
past participlevoled
pastvoled

Plural of vole: voles

Origin of vole

Borrowed from Norn vollj, from Old Norse vǫllr (“field”), from Proto-Germanic *walþuz (“forest”). The Orkney dialectal term vole mouse, lit. “field mouse”, was introduced to general English by George Barry in 1805; John Fleming in 1828 was first to refer to the creature by the epithet vole alone. Displaced earlier names for these species which also classified them as mice, e.g. short-tailed field mouse.

Borrowed from French vole.

Words formed from vole

  • Amargosa vole
  • bank vole
  • beach vole
  • Brandt's vole
  • Buchanan vole
  • California vole
  • Clarke's vole
  • common vole
  • creeping vole
  • East European vole
  • Evorsk vole
  • field vole
  • flat-headed vole
  • Gull Island vole
  • heather vole
  • lacustrine vole
  • Lake Baikal vole
  • large-eared vole
  • lemming vole
  • long-tailed vole
  • mandarin vole
  • Marie's vole
  • Maximowicz's vole
  • meadow vole
  • Mexican vole
  • Middendorff's vole
  • mogollon vole
  • mole vole
  • Mongolian vole
  • montane vole
  • mountain vole
  • Muisk vole
  • Murree vole
  • Muskeget vole
  • Muya Valley vole
  • narrow-headed vole
  • Nasarov's vole
  • north Siberian vole
  • Olkhon Mountain vole
  • Oregon vole
  • Orkney vole
  • paradox vole
  • Pere David's vole
  • Persian vole
  • pine vole
  • plateau vole
  • prairie vole
  • red-backed vole
  • redback vole
  • red tree vole
  • reed vole
  • Richardson's vole
  • rock vole
  • root vole
  • royal vole
  • sagebrush vole
  • Schidlovsky's vole
  • Shansei vole
  • Shikotan vole
  • sibling vole

Phrases with vole

Words that rhyme with vole

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about vole

What does vole mean?
Vole means any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini, Clethrionomyini, Pliomyini, Phenacomyini and Prometheomyini.
What is vole in Tamil?
Vole in Tamil is இதுவும் ஒரு சிற்றினம் ஆகும். See Vole meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is vole?
Vole can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce vole?
Vole is pronounced /vəʊl/ (UK).
What is the plural of vole?
The plural of vole is voles.

Words near vole in the dictionary

  1. Volden
  2. Voldens
  3. Volder's algorithm
  4. Volds
  5. Voldy
  6. vole
  7. voled
  8. volelike
  9. volemia
  10. volemic
  11. volemitol

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vole (page history and authors); vole (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

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

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