maypole

Etymology

It is formed from English May + pole,^[2][3][4][5] from its use in the festivities of May Day.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tall pole decorated with flowers and greenery, set up on a green for people to dance around on May Day: 1529, in a parish record of St Lawrence's, Reading.^[2][7] Etymonline dates it to the 1550s^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1545–55.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline thinks the thing is older than the word, since the first mention it knows is in an ordinance banning maypoles, and a Welsh poem of the mid-14th century already describes such poles.^[6] The pole was often painted with spiral stripes, and dancers held long ribbons tied to its top.^[2][3] From 1600, in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, the word was also used of a tall, thin person or object.^[2][8] From 1607 to 1788 it was a slang euphemism for an erect penis.^[2][9] In the Caribbean, chiefly Barbados, the name was given from 1750 to the century plant, from its long pole-like flower stalk.^[2]

Timeline

• 1529 – a pole set up for May Day dancing.^[2][7]
• 1600 – a tall, thin person or thing.^[2][8]
• 1607 – slang, an erect penis (obsolete by 1788).^[2][9]
• 1750 – Caribbean, a century plant.^[2]
• 1866 – a Jamaican evergreen tree, Spathelia simplex.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tall pole decorated with flowers and ribbons, set up in an open space for dancing around during the celebrations of May Day: The children wove their streamers round the maypole on the village green.^[7][10][2]
2. A tall, thin person or thing.^[2][3]
3. (Caribbean) A century plant.^[2]

Related words

• May Day

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins