pole

Fetched 2026-10-28 (cache).

Datamuse reports no synonyms or antonyms for this word.

Noun

1. Originally, a stick; now specifically, a long and slender piece of metal or (especially) wood, used for various construction or support purposes.
2. A construction by which an animal is harnessed to a carriage.
3. 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. A telescope used to identify birds, aeroplanes or wildlife.
6. A unit of length, equal to a rod (⁄4 chain or 5+⁄2 yards).
7. Ellipsis of pole position.
8. A rifle.
9. A penis.
10. A 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.

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. To furnish with poles for support.
   • to pole beans or hops
4. To convey on poles.
   • to pole hay into a barn
5. To stir, as molten glass, with a pole.
6. To strike (the ball) very hard.
7. To treat (copper) by blowing natural gas or other reducing agent through the molten oxide, burning off the oxygen.
   • to pole copper

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. Any 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.
4. A fixed point relative to other points or lines.
5. A contact on an electrical device (such as a battery) at which electric current enters or leaves.
6. For a meromorphic function f(z), any point a for which f(z)→∞ as z→a.
   • The function f(z)=1z−3 has a single pole at z=3.
7. The firmament; the sky.
8. Either of the states that characterize a bipolar disorder.

Verb

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

Source: Wiktionary · CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wiktionary) · cached copy, not a rewrite.