# pole

Pronunciation: say "POHL" US /poʊl/, UK /pəʊl/

## Noun

1. A 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.
   - Simple: A long, thin stick or bar used to hold things up, or for jumping, fishing, or other jobs.
   - _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._
2. Either 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.
   - Simple: One of the two points the earth spins around, at its top and bottom. Other spinning things have them too.
   - _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._
4. In motor racing, pole position, the first place on the starting grid.
   - Simple: In car racing, the best starting place, at the very front.
   - _A late lap in qualifying gave the rookie her first career pole._
   - _The champion has already collected six poles this season._
5. A point where magnetic force is concentrated, especially either of the two opposite ends of a magnet, called north and south.
   - Simple: One of the two ends of a magnet, called north and south, where its pull is strongest.
   - _Reversing the current swaps the poles of the electromagnet._
   - _A compass needle's north-seeking pole points toward magnetic north._
6. Either of two opposite extremes, such as opposing views or the manic and depressive states of bipolar disorder.
   - Simple: One of two opposite extremes, as in the two poles of an argument.
   - _The novel moves between two poles, cruelty and tenderness._
   - _At one pole stood the free-market purists; at the other, the central planners._
7. In electricity, a contact on a device such as a battery where electric current enters or leaves.
   - Simple: One of the points on a battery or other device where electricity goes in or out.
   - _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._
9. A penis. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A penis, the male sex organ.
   - _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._
13. A unit of length equal to a rod, that is, a quarter of a chain or 5½ yards.
   - Simple: An old unit for measuring length, equal to 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._
15. One 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.
   - Simple: One of two points in the sky that a spinning planet points at, which the stars seem to circle.
   - _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._

## Noun · Pole

3. A native or citizen of Poland, or someone of Polish ancestry.
   - Simple: Someone who comes from Poland or whose family came from Poland.
   - _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._

## Verb

8. To move something, such as a boat, forward by pushing with a pole; to push with a pole.
   - Simple: To push a boat or raft along with a long pole.
   - _Guides pole flat-bottomed boats through the marsh, where motors would tangle in the weeds._
   - _She poled the punt upstream, leaning hard on each stroke._
10. In baseball, to strike the ball with great force.
   - Simple: In baseball, to hit the ball very hard.
   - _Rodriguez poled a fastball deep into the left-field seats._
   - _Big hitters try to pole every pitch, but patience usually pays off._
11. To provide something, such as climbing beans or hops, with poles for support.
   - Simple: To give plants or other things poles that hold them up, for example climbing beans.
   - _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._
12. To carry or move something on poles.
   - Simple: To carry something by putting it on long poles.

## Noun

14. The sky, thought of as the vault of the heavens. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The sky, or the heavens above us.

## Other meanings

- (noun) Each 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.
- (noun) A rifle.
- (noun) In geometry, a fixed point to which other points or lines are related.
- (noun) In complex analysis, a point at which a meromorphic function becomes infinite, so that f(z) tends to infinity as z approaches it.
- (verb) To make a material piezoelectric by lining up its electric dipoles.
- (verb) To 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.
- (noun) A spotting telescope used to identify birds, aircraft or wildlife.
- (verb) To identify something precisely with a telescope, as when reading an aircraft's serial number from a distance.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 4, 8–13** — 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.
**Meanings 2, 5–7, 14–15** — Ancient Greek pólos ("axis of rotation") became Latin polus, and English got the word through Middle French pole, pôle.
**Meaning 3** — Borrowed in the 1600s from German Pole, from Old Polish polanin ("field dweller"), from pole ("field"); unrelated to the other two senses of pole.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/pole (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).