maypole

plural maypoles · alternative may-pole

1. A pole, garlanded with streamers held by people who dance around it to celebrate May Day.

   How would you like the maypole decorated?

   3 more examples

   The maypole, the focal point of many traditional spring games and festivities, is believed to be a relic of ancient phallic worship.

   1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 149

   The seemingly innocent Maypole is a relic of witchcraft.

   1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 93

   At Ickwell Green, in Bedfordshire, there is a permanent maypole. There, the May Queen is accompanied by moggies (raggedly dressed women) carrying besoms - birch-twig brooms.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 263

2. idiomaticA very tall girl or young lady.
3. biologyA maypole-like structure of sticks placed about a sapling in the bowers of certain species of bowerbird.

   The male Golden Bowerbird is a beautiful bird that builds one of the greatest structures in the natural world, a maypole up to three metres tall constructed of sticks and festooned with decorative clusters of flowers and lichens.

   2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 212

4. euphemisticA penis, especially a large one.

   and now, disengag'd from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ'd, it must have belong'd to a young giant.

   Fanny Hill

   1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC

present singular third person maypoles · participle present maypoling · participle past maypoled · past maypoled · alternative may-pole

1. To dance or spin in a circle around something.

   Kristina quieted a little, and maypoled around me.

   2010, Julie Clark, Asperger's in Pink, page 223

   1 more example

   The line jerked and maypoled itself around the rod.

   2011, Simon Brett, Cast in Order of Disappearance

1. A surname.
2. A place in England:
   1. A settlement on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, off the coast of Cornwall (OS grid ref SV9211).
   2. A settlement near the village of Chelsfield, borough of Bromley, Greater London (OS grid ref TQ4963).
   3. A village in Dartford borough, Kent (OS grid ref TQ5173).
   4. A settlement in Hoath parish, Canterbury district, Kent (OS grid ref TR2064).
3. A settlement in Whitecastle community, Monmouthshire, Wales (OS grid ref SO4716).