pollard

Etymology

From poll (“head, scalp”) + -ard. The coin sense derives from the original penny's uncrowned obverse bust, as opposed to the laurel-wreathed form appearing on the rosary. The verb derives from the noun.

noun

1. (often attributive) A pruned tree; the wood of such trees.
   Only a little pollard hedge kept us from their blood-shot eyes. 1869, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, “Chapter 65”, in Lorna Doone
   Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless in the warm sunlight. 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 98
   And at this place there was a long, straight causeway, with two long rows of pollard willows, one upon either hand. 1903, Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Part III, Chapter Third, page 116
2. A buck deer that has shed its antlers.
3. A hornless variety of domestic animal, as cattle or goats.
4. (obsolete, rare) A European chub (Squalius cephalus, syn. Leuciscus cephalus), a kind of fish.
5. (now Australia) A fine grade of bran including some flour. The fine cell layer between bran layers and endosperm, used for animal feed.
6. (numismatics, historical) A 13th-century European coin minted as a debased counterfeit of the sterling silver penny of Edward I of England, at first legally accepted as a halfpenny and then outlawed.

verb

1. (horticulture) To prune a tree heavily, cutting branches back to the trunk, so that it produces dense new growth.
   I didn't know one could pollard elms. I thought one only pollarded willows. 1910, Edward Morgan Forster, chapter 11, in Howards End
   I walked up the path, passing under a heavily pollarded oak. 2019, Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me, Jonathan Cape, page 287