Dole

How to spell dole

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dole

What does dole mean?

1. verbTo hand out or distribute something in small, measured amounts.
2. nounMoney paid by the state to people who are unemployed.

Dole in a sentence

• verb

  The volunteers dole out hot soup to everyone in the queue.

• noun

  After the factory closed, many workers ended up on the dole for months.

• verb

  The manager will dole out the bonuses according to performance.

• noun

  He claimed the dole while searching for a new job.

Where does dole come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English dal, which meant a portion, a share, or a division of something larger. It belongs to the same Germanic family as the verb 'deal', and both ultimately trace back to a root meaning 'to divide or split into parts', so the original idea was simply a measured-out allotment. Through the medieval period 'dole' came to mean specifically a charitable gift of food or money handed out to the poor, an act of dividing one's goods among the needy. From that charitable sense came the modern British expression 'on the dole', meaning living on state unemployment payments, which took hold in the early twentieth century. The verb 'to dole out', meaning to distribute in small measured amounts, preserves the very oldest meaning of dividing a whole into shares.

How the word is built

• dole (from Old English dal: a portion or share)