pole

Multiple Entries:
  pole    Pole  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
pole1

▶noun

• 1 a long, slender piece of wood or metal, typically used as a support.

  ■ a wooden shaft fitted to the front of a cart or carriage drawn by animals and attached to their yokes or collars.

  ■ a simple fishing rod.

• 2 a young tree with a straight slender trunk and no lower branches.

• 3 historical, chiefly Brit. another term for perch3 (sense 1).

  ■ (also square pole) another term for perch3 (sense 2).

▶verb propel (a boat) with a pole.

– phrases
under bare poles Sailing with no sail set.
up the pole informal

• 1 Brit. mad.

• 2 chiefly Irish pregnant.

– origin OE pāl, of Gmc origin, based on L. palus ‘stake’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
pole2

▶noun

• 1 either of the two locations (North Pole or South Pole) on the earth which are the ends of the axis of rotation.

• 2 each of two opposed or contradictory principles or ideas.

• 3 Geometry each of the two points at which the axis of a circle cuts the surface of a sphere.

  ■ a fixed point to which other points or lines are referred, e.g. the origin of polar coordinates.

• 4 each of the two opposite points of a magnet at which magnetic forces are strongest.

  ■ each of two terminals (positive and negative) of an electric cell, battery, or machine.

• 5 Biology an extremity of the main axis of a cell, organ, or part.

– phrases
be poles apart have nothing in common.

– derivatives
poleward adjective,
polewards adjective & adverb.

– origin ME: from L. polus, from Gk polos ‘pivot, axis, sky’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
Pole/pəʊl/

▶noun a native or national of Poland, or a person of Polish descent.