pole

Etymology 1

From Middle English pole, pal, from Old English pāl (“a pole, stake, post; a kind of hoe or spade”), from Proto-West Germanic *pāl (“pole”), from Latin pālus (“stake, pale, prop, stay”), perhaps from Old Latin *paxlos, from Proto-Italic *pākslos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- (“to nail, fasten”). Doublet of peel, pale, and palus. Cognates Cognate with Scots pale, paill (“stake, pale”), North Frisian pul, pil (“stake, pale”), Saterland Frisian Pool (“pole”), West Frisian poal (“pole”), Dutch paal (“pole”), German Pfahl (“pile, stake, post, pole”), Danish pæl (“pole”), Swedish påle (“pole”), Icelandic páll (“hoe, spade, pale”), Old English fæc (“space of time, while, division, interval; lustrum”).

noun

1. Originally, a stick; now specifically, a long and slender piece of metal or (especially) wood, used for various construction or support purposes.
   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. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
2. A construction by which an animal is harnessed to a carriage.
   Meronyms: pole-guard, pole-hook, pole-hound, pole-pad, pole-pin, pole-pin-strap, pole-plate, pole-ring, pole-screen, pole-socket, pole-stop, pole-strap
3. (fishing) A 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. (slang, spotting) A telescope used to identify birds, aeroplanes or wildlife.
6. (historical) A unit of length, equal to a rod (¹⁄₄ chain or 5+¹⁄₂ yards).
7. (motor racing) Pole position.
8. (US, African-American Vernacular, slang) A rifle.
9. (vulgar, slang) A penis.

verb

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. (transitive) To furnish with poles for support.
   to pole beans or hops
4. (transitive) To convey on poles.
   to pole hay into a barn
5. (transitive) To stir, as molten glass, with a pole.
6. (transitive, baseball) To strike (the ball) very hard.
   Long had poled the ball into the lower deck in right center. 2007, Tony Silvia, Baseball Over the Air

Etymology 2

From Middle French pole, pôle, from Latin polus, from Ancient Greek πόλος (pólos, “axis of rotation”).

noun

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. (geometry) A fixed point relative to other points or lines.
4. (electricity) A contact on an electrical device (such as a battery) at which electric current enters or leaves.
5. (complex analysis) For a meromorphic function f(z), any point a for which f(z)→∞ as z→a.
   {{ux|en|The function f(z)=1/(z-3) has a single pole at z=3.}}
6. (obsolete) The firmament; the sky.
7. Either of the states that characterize a bipolar disorder.

verb

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