• (RP) IPA: /dəʊl/, /dɔʊl/
• (America) IPA: /dol/

From Middle English dol, from Old English dāl, from Proto-Germanic *dailą, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰayl-.

dole (doles, present participle doling; simple past and past participle doled)

1. To distribute in small amounts; to share out small portions of a meager resource.

• Russian: раздава́ть

dole

1. Money or other goods given as charity.
   • c. 1690, John Dryden, Eleonora:

     So sure the dole, so ready at their call, / They stood prepar'd to see the manna fall.

   • 1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “In Which Captain Devereux’s Fiddle Plays a Prelude to ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’”, in The House by the Church-yard. […], volume I, London: Tinsley, Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗, pages 307–308 ↗:

     Devereux […] was beholden, not only for his fun, but occasionally for his daily bread and even his liberty, to those benovolent^[sic] doles.

2. Distribution; dealing; apportionment.
   • c. 1650s, John Cleveland, Upon Phillis Walking in a Morning before Sun-rising

     At her general dole, / Each receives his ancient soul.

   • 1827, [John Keble], “Seventh Sunday after Trinity”, in The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year, volume II, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [B]y W. Baxter, for J. Parker; and C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington, […], →OCLC ↗, page 26 ↗:

     Go not away, thou weary soul: / Heaven has in store a precious dole / Even on Bethsaida's cold and darksome height, [...]

3. (informal) Payment by the state to the unemployed; unemployment benefits.

   Synonyms: pancrack, pogey

   I get my dole paid twice a week.

   I've been on the dole for two years now.

4. A boundary; a landmark.
5. (Britain, dialectal) A void space left in tillage.

• Russian: ми́лостыня

• French: assedics
• German: Stütze (colloquial)
• Russian: посо́бие
• Spanish: paro (colloquial)

From Middle English doell, from Old French doel (compare French deuil), from Late Latin dolus, from Latin doleo.

dole (uncountable)

1. (archaic) A sorrow or grief; dolour.
   • 1485, Thomas Malory, William Caxton, Le Morte Darthur, [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:11.18?rgn=div2;view=fulltext Book IX, Chapter xvii, leaf 183r]:

     Syr said sir gyngalyn I wote not what knyȝt he was / but wel I wote that he sygheth and maketh grete dole.
     "Sir, said Sir Gingalin, I wot not what knight he was, but well I wot that he sigheth, and maketh great dole."

   • 1905, Howard Pyle, “The Story of Launcelot”, in The Story of the Champions of the Round Table‎, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 46 ↗:

     These knights he keepeth there in great dole and misery, for it is said that their groans may be heard by the passers along the high-road below the castle.

2. (legal, Scotland) Dolus.

• (America) enPR: dōl, IPA: [doʊ̯ɫ]

1. Surname.
2. (trademark) Dole Food Company, a U.S. agricultural multinational corporation.
3. Dole Constituency, a parliamentary constituency in Zanzibar.
4. A commune in Jura.

1. (Philippines) Acronym of w:Department of Labor and Employment (Philippines)