pole
- 1A long, slender rod or beam, usually of wood or metal, used for support or for purposes such as vaulting, fishing, or harnessing horses to a carriage.
After the storm, crews worked through the night replacing the power poles that had snapped along the county road.
A tall pole supports the center of the circus tent.
Note
Its modern sense is shaped by what it does: a pole holds something up or in place, as in a tent pole, a flagpole, or the weir poles a storm tears out of the sand in Joseph C. Lincoln's Mr. Pratt's Patients (1913).
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Joseph C. Lincoln wrote Mr. Pratt's Patients. home.hiwaay.net
- Mr. Pratt's Patients was first published in 1913. openlibrary.org
- The novel describes a storm ripping weir poles out of the sand. home.hiwaay.net
- 2Either of the two points on the earth's surface around which the planet turns; also, either of the matching points on any other rotating body.
Mars, like the earth, has ice caps at both of its poles.
The expedition hoped to be the first to reach the pole on skis.
UsageCapitalized in the North Pole and the South Pole; the poles covers both.
Note
Greek pólos, "axis of rotation", lies behind it, by way of Latin and French, so the word marks where a spinning body's axis meets its surface. It is unrelated to the wooden pole, whose Latin ancestor meant "stake"; the two only look alike.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- This sense derives through French and Latin from Greek pólos, meaning axis of rotation. en.wiktionary.org
- The rotating-body sense has a different etymological origin from the wooden pole, whose Latin ancestor meant stake. en.wiktionary.org
- A geographical pole is where a body's rotation axis intersects its surface; Earth has two such points. en.wikipedia.org
- 3A native or citizen of Poland, or someone of Polish ancestry.
Though born in Detroit, he still thinks of himself as a Pole.
The team's two Poles chatted in their own language during the break.
UsageWritten with a capital P; the adjective and the language are Polish.
- 4In motor racing, pole position, the first place on the starting grid.
A late lap in qualifying gave the rookie her first career pole.
The champion has already collected six poles this season.
UsageUsually with no article: take pole, start from pole, sit on pole.
- 5A point where magnetic force is concentrated, especially either of the two opposite ends of a magnet, called north and south.
Reversing the current swaps the poles of the electromagnet.
A compass needle's north-seeking pole points toward magnetic north.
- 6Either of two opposite extremes, such as opposing views or the manic and depressive states of bipolar disorder.
The novel moves between two poles, cruelty and tenderness.
At one pole stood the free-market purists; at the other, the central planners.
UsageCommon in poles apart, meaning completely different, and at opposite poles.
- 7In electricity, a contact on a device such as a battery where electric current enters or leaves.
On most car batteries, the positive pole is marked with a plus sign and is slightly thicker than the negative.
Corrosion on the battery poles kept the engine from starting.
Note
Each contact is either positive or negative, and in everyday use the word overlaps with terminal. By convention, when a battery is supplying power, current is said to flow out of the positive pole, through the circuit, and back into the negative one.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Polarity markings are not universal, even on batteries. daytonaudio.com
- This describes a battery supplying power. During charging, conventional current enters its positive terminal and leaves its negative terminal. openstax.org
Less common meanings
- 8
- 9A penis.
The locker-room banter turned to crude jokes about whose pole was biggest.
The movie's humor never rises above jokes about the hero's pole.
Similarpenis
- 10In baseball, to strike the ball with great force.
Rodriguez poled a fastball deep into the left-field seats.
Big hitters try to pole every pitch, but patience usually pays off.
Similarbelt, smash, crush, blast, drive
Note
Broadcasters and sportswriters use it for power hitting, and it usually comes with a destination that shows the distance: poled the ball into the lower deck, poled one over the wall. The object can be the ball, the pitch or the hit itself.
- 11To provide something, such as climbing beans or hops, with poles for support.
Before wire trellises took over, hop farmers poled their yards every spring so the young vines had something to climb.
As soon as the climbing beans sprout, we pole them with straight saplings cut from the woods.
Similarstake
- 12To carry or move something on poles.
- 13A unit of length equal to a rod, that is, a quarter of a chain or 5½ yards.
The deed describes a strip of land twelve poles wide running down to the creek.
He paced out a single pole and drove a stake at each end.
Note
A reader now meets the unit mainly in old deeds, maps and land records, beside the rod and chain it was defined by. Pole and rod name the same length, so a survey may use either; to convert, multiply by 5½ yards, about five meters.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- The pole has a fixed relationship to the rod and chain: one pole equals one rod and a quarter of a chain. nist.gov
- Pole and rod denote the same length, equal to 5½ yards, so multiplying a measurement in poles by 5½ gives yards. kettlecreekconservation.on.ca
- One pole is approximately five meters. nist.gov
- 14The sky, thought of as the vault of the heavens.
And the slope sun his upward beam / Shoots against the dusky pole,
1634, [John Milton], A Maske Presented at Ludlow CastleNote
Older poetry stretched the name of the point the heavens seem to turn around to cover the whole vault of the sky. Milton's masque Comus, first performed in 1634, has the setting sun shoot its last beam "against the dusky pole", the darkening evening sky; in current English the word no longer carries this meaning.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- A celestial pole is a point around which the heavens appear to turn. en.wikipedia.org
- Older poetry used pole for the whole sky. en.wiktionary.org
- Comus is a masque by John Milton, first performed in 1634. en.wikipedia.org
- The setting sun shoots a beam against the dusky pole; the quoted words occur in Comus's speech. gutenberg.org
- 15One of the two points on the sky lying straight along a planet's axis of spin, serving as the centers the stars seem to wheel around.
Over a long exposure, every star in the frame swings in an arc around the pole.
Sailors heading north saw the pole stand a little higher in the night sky with every degree of latitude they gained.
Note
Astronomers usually add celestial, the north or south celestial pole, to keep these points in the sky apart from the ends of the earth's axis. The Greek behind the word meant an axis of rotation, and that is the right picture: the stars seem to wheel around these two points only because the planet is spinning beneath them.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The celestial poles are points in the sky aligned with Earth's rotational axis, distinct from its geographical poles. en.wikipedia.org
- The Greek ancestor of pole in this sense meant an axis of rotation. en.wiktionary.org
- The apparent circling of stars around the celestial poles results from the planet's rotation. science.nasa.gov
- 16Each of the two opposite ends of a roughly round organ, cell, egg or the like, for example the top and bottom of a kidney or breast.
- 17A rifle.
- 18In geometry, a fixed point to which other points or lines are related.
- 19In complex analysis, a point at which a meromorphic function becomes infinite, so that f(z) tends to infinity as z approaches it.
- 20To make a material piezoelectric by lining up its electric dipoles.
- 21To refine molten metal, especially copper or tin, by removing oxygen with a reducing agent, traditionally green wood; in modern copper refining, often injected gas. Also, to stir molten glass with a pole.
- 22A spotting telescope used to identify birds, aircraft or wildlife.
- 23To identify something precisely with a telescope, as when reading an aircraft's serial number from a distance.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English pole, pal, from Old English pāl ("pole, stake, post"), from Proto-West Germanic *pāl, from Latin pālus ("stake, prop"), perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- ("to nail, fasten"). It is a doublet of pale and peel, and related to Dutch paal and German Pfahl.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Pole descends from Middle English pole, pal and Old English pāl, meaning pole, stake or post. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English pāl descends from Proto-West Germanic *pāl, derived from Latin pālus. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin pālus meant stake or prop. en.wiktionary.org
- The word may ultimately derive from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-, meaning to nail or fasten. en.wiktionary.org
- Pole, pale and peel share an etymological source. en.wiktionary.org
- Pole is etymologically related to Dutch paal and German Pfahl. en.wiktionary.org
Ancient Greek pólos ("axis of rotation") became Latin polus, and English got the word through Middle French pole, pôle.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Ancient Greek pólos meant “axis of rotation”. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin polus was borrowed from Ancient Greek pólos. en.wiktionary.org
- English pole came through Middle French pole, pôle, from Latin polus. en.wiktionary.org
Borrowed in the 1600s from German Pole, from Old Polish polanin ("field dweller"), from pole ("field"); unrelated to the other two senses of pole.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- English Pole was borrowed from German Pole. en.wiktionary.org
- The underlying word pole means field. en.wikipedia.org
- Pole meaning a Polish person has a separate origin from the stick and geographical senses. en.wiktionary.org