Polls

How to spell polls

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce polls

What does polls mean?

1. nounSurveys of public opinion, or counts of votes cast in an election.
2. nounThe places where people go to cast their votes in an election.
3. verbSurveys people for their opinions, or receives a stated number of votes.

Polls in a sentence

• noun

  The latest opinion polls show the two candidates almost level.

• noun

  Voters lined up outside the polls well before they opened.

• verb

  The research firm regularly polls households about their spending habits.

• noun

  Several polls predicted a very close election result this year.

• noun

  The polls close at eight in the evening on election day.

• verb

  The incumbent senator polls well among younger voters this season.

Where does polls come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The base word 'poll' arrived in English in the 1200s, most likely from a Middle Dutch or Middle Low German word 'pol' or 'polle' meaning the top of the head, the scalp, or simply 'head'. Because counting people meant counting their heads, 'poll' came to mean a head count, and from there a tally of votes; by the 1600s it referred to the gathering of voters and the place where votes were cast. The modern sense of an 'opinion poll', a survey that measures public mood, grew out of this same head-counting idea in the early twentieth century. The plural and verb form simply add -s, and the double l of the root carries straight through, which is the main spelling point: it stays 'polls', not 'poles'. The unrelated 'poll tax' and the verb 'to poll a witness' both preserve that old notion of going round and counting individual heads.

How the word is built

• poll (head, count of heads)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb ending)