• (RP) IPA: /pəʊl/, [pʰɒʊɫ]
• (New Zealand, Australia) IPA: /pɐʉl/, [pʰɒʊɫ]
• (America, Canada) IPA: /poʊl/, [pʰoʊɫ], [pʰoəɫ]
• (Scotland) IPA: /pol/, [pʰoɫ]

From Middle English pole, pal, from Old English pāl, from Proto-West Germanic *pāl, from Latin pālus, perhaps from itc-ola *paxlos, from itc-pro *pākslos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ-.

pole (plural poles)

1. Originally, a stick; now specifically, a long and slender piece of metal or (especially) wood, used for various construction or support purposes.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:

     For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.

2. A construction by which an animal is harnessed to a carriage.

   Synonyms: carriage pole, beam, shaft, drawbar

   Meronyms: pole-guard, pole-hook, pole-hound, pole-pad, pole-pin, pole-pin-strap, pole-plate, pole-ring, pole-screen, pole-socket, pole-stop, pole-strap

3. (angling) A type of basic fishing rod.
4. A long sports implement used for pole-vaulting; now made of glassfiber or carbon fiber, formerly also metal, bamboo and wood have been used.
5. (slang, spotting) A telescope used to identify birds, aeroplanes or wildlife.
6. (historical) A unit of length, equal to a rod (¹⁄₄ chain or 5+¹⁄₂ yards).
7. (motor racing) Pole position.
8. (US, AAVE, slang) A rifle.
9. (vulgar, slang) A penis.

• See also Thesaurus:stick
• (unit of length) rod

• French: perche
• German: Stab, Stange
• Italian: palo, asta, pertica
• Portuguese: vara
• Russian: жердь
• Spanish: palo, garrocha, vara

• Italian: canna, canna da pesca
• Portuguese: caniço

• Italian: asta

• French: perche
• Italian: pertica

pole (poles, present participle poling; simple past and past participle poled)

1. To propel by pushing with poles, to push with a pole.

   Huck Finn poled that raft southward down the Mississippi because going northward against the current was too much work.

2. To identify something quite precisely using a telescope.

   He poled off the serial of the Gulfstream to confirm its identity.

3. (transitive) To furnish with poles for support.

   to pole beans or hops

4. (transitive) To convey on poles.

   to pole hay into a barn

5. (transitive) To stir, as molten glass, with a pole.
6. (transitive, baseball) To strike (the ball) very hard.
7. (transitive, metallurgy) To treat (copper) by blowing natural gas or other reducing agent through the molten oxide, burning off the oxygen.

   to pole copper

• Portuguese: varear

From Middle French pole, pôle, from Latin polus, from Ancient Greek πόλος.

pole (plural poles)

1. Either of the two points on the earth's surface around which it rotates; also, similar points on any other rotating object.
2. A point of magnetic focus, especially each of the two opposing such points of a magnet (designated north and south).
3. (geometry) A fixed point relative to other points or lines.
4. (electricity) A contact on an electrical device (such as a battery) at which electric current enters or leaves.
5. (complex analysis) For a meromorphic function f(z), any point a for which f(z) \rightarrow \infty as z \rightarrow a.

   The function f(z) = \frac{1}{z-3} has a single pole at z = 3.

6. (obsolete) The firmament; the sky.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC ↗; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC ↗:

     And the slope sun his upward beam / Shoots against the dusky pole,

     page 211 ↗

7. Either of the states that characterize a bipolar disorder.

• (antonym(s) of “complex analysis”): zero

• French: pôle
• German: Pol
• Italian: polo
• Portuguese: polo, extremidade
• Russian: по́люс
• Spanish: polo

• French: pôle
• German: Pol
• Italian: polo
• Portuguese: polo
• Russian: по́люс
• Spanish: polo

• German: Pol
• Italian: polo
• Portuguese: polo
• Russian: по́люс
• Spanish: polo

• German: Polstelle, Pol
• Portuguese: polo
• Russian: по́люс
• Spanish: polo

pole (poles, present participle poling; simple past and past participle poled)

1. (transitive) To induce piezoelectricity in (a substance) by aligning the dipoles.

• (RP) IPA: /pəʊl/, /pɒʊl/
• (America) IPA: /poʊl/
• (Scotland) IPA: /pol/

From German Pole.

pole (plural poles)

1. A person from Poland or of Polish descent.

• Polander (archaic)

• French: Polonais, Polonaise
• German: Pole, Polin
• Italian: polacco, polacca
• Portuguese: polonês, polonesa (Brazil), polaco, polaca
• Russian: поля́к
• Spanish: polaco, polaca

1. Surname.