dole

Verb

dole (third-person singular simple present doles, present participle doling, simple past and past participle doled)

1. To distribute in small amounts; to share out small portions of a meager resource.

Derived terms

• dole out

Translations

Noun

dole

1. Money or other goods given as charity.
   • Dryden

     So sure the dole, so ready at their call, / They stood prepar'd to see the manna fall.

   • Keble

     Heaven has in store a precious dole.

   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     Devereux, indeed, being a fast man, with such acres as he inherited, which certainly did not reach a thousand, mortgaged pretty smartly, and with as much personal debt beside, of the fashionable and refined sort, as became a young buck of bright though doubtful expectations […] was beholden, not only for his fun, but, occasionally for his daily bread and even his liberty, to those benevolent doles.

2. Distribution; dealing; apportionment.
   • Cleveland

     At her general dole, / Each receives his ancient soul.

3. (informal) Payment by the state to the unemployed.

   I get my dole paid twice a week.

   I′ve been on the dole for two years now.

   • 1996, Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes: A Memoir, page 107,

     The men sit because they′re worn out from walking to the Labour Exchange every morning to sign for the dole, discussing the world’s problems and wondering what to do with the rest of the day.

   • 1997, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Economic Surveys: Australia, page 67,

     The FY 1997/98 Commonwealth budget allocated funding of A$ 21.6 million to the Work for the Dole initiative for unemployed young people.

4. A boundary; a landmark.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)

5. (Britain, dialect) A void space left in tillage.

Noun

dole (uncountable)

1. (archaic) Sorrow or grief; dolour.
   • 1485, Thomas Malory, William Caxton, 1868, Morte Darthur, page 212,

     Sir, said Sir Gingalin, I wot not what knight he was, but well I wot that he sigheth, and maketh great dole.

   • a. 1885, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Lancelot and Elaine”, in Idylls of the King:

     But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh / Her father laid the letter in her hand, / And closed the hand upon it, and she died. / So that day there was dole in Astolat.

2. (law, Scotland) dolus

Antonyms

• nahoře

Related terms

• dolů

See also

• vlevo
• vpravo