poll

See also: Poll, póll, põll, and Pöll

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English pol, polle ("scalp, pate"), probably from or else cognate with Middle Dutch pol, pōle, polle (“top, summit; head”),[1] from Proto-Germanic *pullaz (“round object, head, top”), from Proto-Indo-European *bolno-, *bōwl- (“orb, round object, bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”). Akin to Scots pow (“head, crown, skalp, skull”), Saterland Frisian pol (“round, full, brimming”), Low German polle (“head, tree-top, bulb”), Danish puld (“crown of a hat”), Swedish dialectal pull (“head”). Meaning "collection of votes" is first recorded 1625, from notion of "counting heads".

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Noun

poll (plural polls)

  1. A survey of people, usually statistically analyzed to gauge wider public opinion.
  2. A formal election.
    The student council had a poll to see what people want served in the cafeteria.
    • Blackstone
      All soldiers quartered in place are to remove […] and not to return till one day after the poll is ended.
  3. A polling place (usually as plural, polling places)
    The polls close at 8 p.m.
  4. (now rare outside veterinary contexts) The head, particularly the scalp or pate upon which hair (normally) grows.
    • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
      ...the doctor, as if to hear better, had taken off his powdered wig, and sat there, looking very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll.
    • 1908, O. Henry, A Tempered Wind
      And you might perceive the president and general manager, Mr. R. G. Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office room dictating letters..
  5. (in extended senses of the above) A mass of people, a mob or muster, considered as a head count.
    • Shakespeare
      We are the greater poll, and in true fear / They gave us our demands.
    • Shakespeare
      The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll.
  6. The broad or butt end of an axe or a hammer.
  7. The pollard or European chub, a kind of fish.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Verb

poll (third-person singular simple present polls, present participle polling, simple past and past participle polled)

  1. (transitive) To take, record the votes of (an electorate).
  2. (transitive) To solicit mock votes from (a person or group).
  3. (intransitive) To vote at an election.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Beaconsfield to this entry?)
  4. To register or deposit, as a vote; to elicit or call forth, as votes or voters.
    He polled a hundred votes more than his opponent.
    • Tickell
      poll for points of faith his trusty vote
  5. To cut off; to remove by clipping, shearing, etc.; to mow or crop.
    to poll the hair; to poll wool; to poll grass
    • Chapman
      Who, as he polled off his dart's head, so sure he had decreed / That all the counsels of their war he would poll off like it.
  6. (transitive) To cut the hair of (a creature).
    • Bible, 2 Sam. xiv. 26
      when he [Absalom] polled his head
    • Sir T. North
      His death did so grieve them that they polled themselves; they clipped off their horse and mule's hairs.
  7. (transitive) To remove the horns of (an animal).
  8. To remove the top or end of; to clip; to lop.
    to poll a tree
  9. (transitive, computing, communication) To (repeatedly) request the status of something (such as a computer or printer on a network).
    The network hub polled the department's computers to determine which ones could still respond.
  10. (intransitive, with adverb) To be judged in a poll.
    • 2008, Joanne McEvoy, The politics of Northern Ireland (page 171)
      The election was a resounding defeat for Robert McCartney who polled badly in the six constituencies he contested and even lost his own Assembly seat in North Down.
  11. (obsolete) To extort from; to plunder; to strip.
    • Spenser
      which polls and pills the poor in piteous wise
  12. To impose a tax upon.
  13. To pay as one's personal tax.
    • Dryden
      the man that polled but twelve pence for his head
  14. To enter, as polls or persons, in a list or register; to enroll, especially for purposes of taxation; to enumerate one by one.
    • Milton
      polling the reformed churches whether they equalize in number those of his three kingdoms
  15. (law) To cut or shave smooth or even; to cut in a straight line without indentation.
    a polled deed
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Burrill to this entry?)
Translations

Adjective

poll

  1. (of kinds of livestock which typically have horns) Bred without horns, and thus hornless.
    Poll Hereford
    Red Poll cows
    • 1757, The monthly review, or, literary journal, volume 17, page 416:
      Sheep, that is, the Horned sort, and those without Horns, called Poll Sheep [...]
    • 1960, Frank O'Loghlen, Frank H. Johnston, Cattle country: an illustrated survey of the Australian beef cattle industry, a complete directory of the studs, page 85:
      About 15000 cattle, comprising 10000 Hereford and Poll Hereford, 4000 Aberdeen Angus and 1000 Shorthorn and Poll Shorthorn, are grazed [...]
    • 1970, The Pastoral review, volume 80, page 457:
      Otherwise, both horned and poll sheep continue to be bred from an inner stud.


References

  1. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. "poll, n.1" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2006.

Etymology 2

Perhaps a shortening of Polly, a common name for pet parrots.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /pɒl/

Noun

poll (plural polls)

  1. A pet parrot.

Etymology 3

From Ancient Greek πολλοί (polloí, “the many, the masses”)

Noun

poll (plural polls)

  1. (Britain, dated, Cambridge University slang) One who does not try for honors at university, but is content to take a degree merely; a passman.

See also

References

  • Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967

Catalan

Etymology 1

From Old Occitan, from Latin pullus, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *polH- (“animal young”).

Pronunciation

Noun

poll m (plural polls)

  1. chicken (bird)
Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Old Occitan, from Late Latin peduclus < peduculus, variant of Latin pēdīculus, from pēdis, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pezd-.

Pronunciation

Noun

poll m (plural polls)

  1. louse (insect)
Derived terms
  • pollós
See also

Further reading

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • Audio(file)

Verb

poll

  1. first-person singular present indicative of pollen
  2. imperative of pollen

German

Verb

poll

  1. Imperative singular of pollen.
  2. (colloquial) First-person singular present of pollen.

Icelandic

Noun

poll

  1. indefinite accusative singular of pollur

Irish

Etymology

From Middle Irish poll (“hole”), from Old English pōl (compare English pool).

Pronunciation

  • (Galway) IPA(key): /pˠəul̪ˠ/[1][2]

Noun

poll m (genitive singular poill, nominative plural poill)

  1. hole
    1. storage pit; disposal pit; extraction pit
    2. pool, puddle; pond, sea
    3. burrow, lair
    4. dark, mean place (of prison)
    5. shaft, vent hole
    6. aperture
    7. (anatomy) orifice, cavity
    8. perforation
    9. (figuratively) leak
    10. pothole

Declension

Synonyms

Derived terms

Verb

poll (present analytic pollann, future analytic pollfaidh, verbal noun polladh, past participle pollta)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) hole; puncture, pierce, bore, perforate (make a hole in)

Conjugation

Derived terms

  • polltóir (“perforator”)
  • uchtbhalla pollta (“machicolation”)

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
poll pholl bpoll
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

  1. ↑ Finck, F. N. (1899), Die araner mundart, Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, vol. II, p. 209.
  2. ↑ Tomás de Bhaldraithe, 1975, The Irish of Cois Fhairrge, Co. Galway: A Phonetic Study, Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, section 215.

Further reading

  • "poll" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.
  • “poll” in Dictionary of the Irish Language, Royal Irish Academy, 1913–76.

Middle English

Noun

poll

  1. A head, particularly the scalp or pate upon which the hair (normally) grows

Scottish Gaelic

Noun

poll m (genitive singular puill, plural puill)

  1. mud, mire
  2. pond, pool, bog

Derived terms

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