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.

   There she was, walking around with an IV pole, and we were only told that "Mommy isn't feeling so well, so she has to be connected to a special soda."

   2019, Abby Chava Stein, Becoming Eve, Seal Press, page 26

   1 more example

   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.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

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

   Synonyms: carriage pole, beam, shaft, drawbar

3. fishingA 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. slangspottingA telescope used to identify birds, aeroplanes or wildlife.
6. historicalA unit of length, equal to a rod (¹⁄₄ chain or 5+¹⁄₂ yards).

   Synonyms: rod

7. abbreviationellipsishobbiesEllipsis of pole position.
8. USslangAfrican-American VernacularA rifle.
9. slangvulgarA penis.
10. slangball gamesA wicket, especially in the context of the number of wickets taken by a particular bowler.

    Only three cricketers have taken all 10 poles in a Test innings.

present singular third person poles · participle present poling · participle past poled · past 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. transitiveTo furnish with poles for support.

   to pole beans or hops

4. transitiveTo convey on poles.

   to pole hay into a barn

5. transitiveTo stir, as molten glass, with a pole.
6. transitiveball gamesTo strike (the ball) very hard.

   Long had poled the ball into the lower deck in right center.

   2007, Tony Silvia, Baseball Over the Air

7. transitiveengineeringTo treat (copper) by blowing natural gas or other reducing agent through the molten oxide, burning off the oxygen.

   to pole copper

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. broadlyfigurativelyAny of a small set of extremes; especially, either of two extremes that are possible or available.

   In discussing alternatives to the polar extremes, Professor Nguyen mentioned two poles of a filthy floor versus a sterile surgical site.

   1 more example

   Genuine music is the offspring of profound emotion: of exaltation, pain, or joy. Music produced outside of a situation between these poles of the human heart is of banal character, bloodless, watery.

   1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 194

4. geometryA fixed point relative to other points or lines.
5. businessA contact on an electrical device (such as a battery) at which electric current enters or leaves.
6. complex analysisFor a meromorphic function f(z), any point a for which f(z)→∞ as z→a.

   The function f(z)#61;#92;frac#123;1#125;#123;z-3#125; has a single pole at z#61;3.

7. obsoleteThe firmament; the sky.

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

   Comus

   1634 October 9 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [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

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

present singular third person poles · participle present poling · participle past poled · past poled

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

plural Poles

1. A person from Poland or of Polish descent.

   The Poles are well dressed, handsome, and somehow on a larger scale than their surroundings, as if they have grown since the war and Poland itself has not.

   1989 May, Priit J. Vesilind, “The Baltic: Arena of Power”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 626

   Synonyms: Polander

alternative archaic de la Pole

1. A surname.