Pole

How to spell pole

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pole

What does pole mean?

1. nounA long, slender length of wood, metal, or fibreglass.
2. nounEither of the two points where the Earth's axis meets its surface, or one of the two ends of a magnet.

Pole in a sentence

• The tent collapsed when one pole snapped in the wind.

• The expedition trekked for weeks to reach the South pole.

• He leaned the fishing pole against the garden shed.

• The compass needle swung toward the magnetic north pole.

Where does pole come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This short word hides two separate origins that ended up sharing one spelling. The 'long rod' sense descends from the Latin palus, meaning a 'stake' or 'post', which entered Old English as pal and was used for fence posts and supporting timbers; the same Latin root also gives us 'pale' (as in 'beyond the pale', originally a fenced boundary) and 'palisade'. The geographical and magnetic sense comes instead from the Greek polos, meaning a 'pivot' or 'axis', the imaginary point about which a sphere turns; this travelled into English through Latin polus during the late Middle Ages as astronomers described the points where the Earth's axis meets its surface. The two words converged on the identical modern spelling, so context alone tells them apart. The lasting spelling trap is the homophone 'poll' (a vote or a survey), which sounds exactly the same but carries that doubled letter and quite unrelated meaning.

How the word is built

• pole (single root; rod sense from Latin palus 'stake', axis sense from Greek polos 'pivot, axis')

Words that sound like pole

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• poll: A counting of votes, or a survey recording the opinions of a sample of people.