bole

plural boles

1. The trunk or stem of a tree.

   A fine powder filled the air and caressed the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below.

   1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean / Upon the dusky brushwood underneath / Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green, / New from its silken sheath.

   1842, Alfred Tennyson, “A Dream of Fair Women”, in Poems, volume 1, page 188

plural boles

1. countableuncountableAny of several varieties of friable earthy clay, usually coloured red by iron oxide, and composed essentially of hydrous silicates of alumina, or more rarely of magnesia.

   Good Iznik has strong colours well-contained within their outlines and a very clean, clear white. The red colour, made with Armenian bole (an earthy clay) should be thick and proud of the surface.

   2018 April 14, “8 things to know about İznik pottery”, in Christie's

2. countableuncountableThe shade of reddish brown which resembles this clay.
3. countableobsoleteuncountableA bolus; a dose.

   […]or else[…]the churches were very incurious to swallow such a bole, if no pretension could have been reasonably made for their justification.

   1649, Jeremy Taylor, “An Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy Against the Pretence of the Spirit”, in Charles Page Eden, editor, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., volume V, published 1849, page 294

plural boles

1. alternativeAlternative form of boll (old unit of measure).

   Take then good Barley newly thrashed and well purged from the Chaff, and put thereof eight Boles, that is about ſix English Quarters, in a Stone - trough

   1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC

plural boles

1. ScotlandAn aperture with a shutter in the wall of a house, to admit air or light.

   "Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her daughter-in-law, “open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the right Lord Geraldin[…].

   1816, Walter Scott, The Antiquary, Adam and Charles Black, published 1862, page 220

2. ScotlandA small closet.

1. A Chadic language native to Nigeria.

alternative Po-lo

1. A county-level city of Bortala prefecture, Xinjiang autonomous region, China.

   As September gets under way, the fields and open country of southern Xinjiang, stretching from Turpan through Korla, Aksu and Kashi to Hotan, as well as the northern country areas from Manas and Shihu westwards across to Bole (Bortala), are all abloom with silvery, snow-white blossoms.

   Xinjiang : the Land and the People

   1989, 郑平 [Zheng Ping], 洛安吉 [Luo Anji], transl., 新疆风物志 [Xinjiang : the Land and the People], Beijing: New World Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 221

   2 more examples

   "We are destined to become a very important region," said Hua Dingchuan, a trade official in Bole, a city that 10 years ago had virtually no private cars, and now is as densely developed and busy as any American suburb.[…] Bole, a city in Xinjiang Province, is now densely developed and has the conveniences of modern Chinese life.

   2004 March 28, Howard W. French, “China Moves Toward Another West: Central Asia”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 May 2015, World

   In the city of Bole, retired teachers from the Wutubulage Middle School were called in to stand guard at mosques and prevent students from entering, according to a statement on the municipal party committee website. Also in Bole, the Bozhou University of Radio and Television said on its website it held a meeting with working and retired minority teachers on the first day of the Ramadan to remind them of the fasting ban.

   2014 July 3, Didi Tang, “China bans Ramadan fast in Muslim northwest”, in AP News, archived from the original on 20 Jun 2022

1. A town in Ghana.

1. A village and civil parish of Nottinghamshire, England.

plural Boles

1. A surname.