poll

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

▶noun

• 1 the process of voting in an election.

  ■ a record of the number of votes cast in an election.

  ■ an opinion poll.

• 2 dialect a person's head or scalp.

• 3 a hornless animal, especially one of a breed of hornless cattle.

▶verb

• 1 record the opinion or vote of.

  ■ (of a candidate in an election) receive a specified number of votes.

• 2 cut the horns off (an animal, especially a young cow).

  ■ (as adj. polled) (of a domestic animal) lacking horns.

  ■ archaic cut off the top of (a tree or plant); pollard.

• 3 Telecommunications & Computing check the status of (a device), especially as part of a repeated cycle.

– derivatives
pollee /pəʊˈliː/ noun.

– origin ME (in the sense ‘head’, later ‘number of people ascertained by counting of heads’): perh. of Low Ger. origin.