English
hole
see also: Hole
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /həʊl/, [hɔʊɫ]
  • (Australia, New Zealand) IPA: /hɐʉl/, [hɔʊɫ]
  • (America) IPA: /hoʊl/, [hoɫ]
Noun

hole (plural holes)

  1. A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure.
    I made a blind hole in the wall for a peg.  I dug a hole and planted a tree in it.
    • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene vii]:
      To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks.
    • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC ↗:
      Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.
  2. An opening that goes all the way through a solid body, a fabric, etc.; a perforation; a rent.
    There’s a hole in my shoe.  Her stocking has a hole in it.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, 2 Kings 12:9 ↗:
      The priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid.
    • 1840, Alfred Tennyson, Godiva:
      […] her palfrey’s footfall shot
      Light horrors thro’ her pulses: the blind walls
      Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
      Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: […]
  3. (heading) In games.
    1. (golf) A subsurface standard-size hole, also called cup, hitting the ball into which is the object of play. Each hole, of which there are usually eighteen as the standard on a full course, is located on a prepared surface, called the green, of a particular type grass.
    2. (golf) The part of a game in which a player attempts to hit the ball into one of the holes.
      I played 18 holes yesterday.  The second hole today cost me three strokes over par.
    3. (baseball) The rear portion of the defensive team between the shortstop and the third baseman.
      The shortstop ranged deep into the hole to make the stop.
    4. (chess) A square on the board, with some positional significance, that a player does not, and cannot in the future, control with a friendly pawn.
    5. (stud poker) A card (also called a hole card) dealt face down thus unknown to all but its holder; the status in which such a card is.
    6. In the game of fives, part of the floor of the court between the step and the pepperbox.
  4. (archaeology, slang) An excavation pit or trench.
  5. (figuratively) A weakness; a flaw or ambiguity.
    I have found a hole in your argument.
  6. (informal) A container or receptacle.
    car hole;  brain hole
  7. (physics) In semiconductors, a lack of an electron in an occupied band behaving like a positively charged particle.
  8. (computing) A security vulnerability in software which can be taken advantage of by an exploit.
  9. (slang, derogatory) A person's mouth.
    Just shut your hole!
  10. (slang) Any bodily orifice, in particular the anus.
  11. (Ireland, Scotland, vulgar) Vagina.
  12. (informal, with "the") Solitary confinement, a high-security prison cell often used as punishment.
    Synonyms: box
    • 2011, Ahmariah Jackson, IAtomic Seven, Locked Up but Not Locked Down:
      Disciplinary actions can range from a mere write up to serious time in the hole.
  13. (slang) An undesirable place to live or visit.
    His apartment is a hole!
  14. (figurative) Difficulty, in particular, debt.
    If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
  15. (graph theory) A chordless cycle in a graph.
  16. (slang, rail transport) A passing loop; a siding provided for trains traveling in opposite directions on a single-track line to pass each other.
    We’re supposed to take the hole at Cronk and wait for the Limited to pass.
  17. (North America, historical) A mountain valley.
    Jackson Hole
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

hole (holes, present participle holing; simple past and past participle holed)

  1. (transitive) To make holes in (an object or surface).
    Shrapnel holed the ship's hull.
  2. (transitive, by extension) To destroy.
    She completely holed the argument.
  3. (intransitive) To go into a hole.
  4. (transitive) To drive into a hole, as an animal, or a billiard ball or golf ball.
    • 1799, Sporting Magazine, volume 13, page 49:
      If the player holes the red ball, he scores three, and upon holing his adversary's ball, he gains two; and thus it frequently happens, that seven are got upon a single stroke, by caramboling and holing both balls.
    Woods holed a standard three foot putt
  5. (transitive) To cut, dig, or bore a hole or holes in.
    to hole a post for the insertion of rails or bars
Translations Adjective

hole (comparative holer, superlative holest)

  1. Obsolete spelling of whole
    • 1843, Sir George Webbe Dasent (translator), A grammar of the Icelandic or Old Norse tongue (originally by Rasmus Christian Rask)
      Such was the arrangement of the alphabet over the hole North.
  2. Misspelling of whole
Hole
Etymology

Various origins:

  • English topographic surname for someone who lived by a depression, from Old English holh, from Proto-West Germanic *hulwī, from Proto-Germanic *hulwiją.
  • Borrowed from Norwegian Hole, a habitational surname from Old Norse hóll.
  • Shortened form of Dutch van Hole, a habitational surname from hol ("hole, depression, cavity").
Proper noun
  1. Surname.


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