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Etymology and origin of the English word pole

English has two words spelled pole: one for a long piece of wood, from Old English, and one for the end of an axis, from Latin and Greek.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

pole1 long piece of wood

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1050
Borrowed from
Latin palus via Middle English, Old English
Ultimate origin
Latin pālus
Etymology tree of pole1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin palus
Aromanian par
English pole
From the same root · pole1
Latin tripalis ← palus

Etymology

The word for a stake or long piece of wood is inherited from Middle English pole, also polle,[3][4] inherited from Old English pāl (“stake, pole”),[5][3][6][2] borrowed from Latin pālus (“stake, prop”).[5][3][7][8] Barnhart reconstructs an earlier Latin form *pagslos, and with Merriam-Webster relates the noun to pangō (“to fasten”), the source of pact;[3][2] the American Heritage Dictionary refers it to Proto-Indo-European *pag- (“to fasten”).[7] The Latin word was also borrowed into other Germanic languages: Old Frisian pāl, Middle Dutch pael, Old Saxon pāl, Old High German pfāl (modern Pfahl) and Old Norse páll.[5][3][6] The OED takes these as separate borrowings, while Ayto assumes a single prehistoric borrowing, Proto-West Germanic *pāl.[5][1][4] The same Latin noun gave pale, a stake.[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English, a stake of any length or thickness: the OED's first record is in Ælfric's Glossary,[5] and the 1989 edition of the OED dated it about 1050.[9][3] Bosworth-Toller also records the Old English word for a kind of hoe or spade.[10] Barnhart finds Middle English polle before 1325, pole in 1340 in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, and the word earlier in the surname Waghepol (1218).[3]

Semantic evolution

The modern sense of a long, slender, rounded piece of wood narrowed the older "stake", which said nothing about length or thickness.[5][11] From 1391 it was the shaft of a carriage, from about 1450 a ship's mast (under bare poles, with no sail set), from 1533 a trade sign, later only the barber's pole;[5] it was a fishing rod from 1577.[5] As a measure of land, the same as a perch or rod, it dates from before 1500, and as a square measure from 1637.[5][6] On 19th-century racecourses a pole marked the starting position nearest the inside rails (1851), hence the pole position of motor racing (1976).[12][5] Later uses include the rod of the pole vault (1868) and the ski pole (1920).[5] The colloquial up the pole, in trouble, mad or drunk, is recorded from 1886;[9] Flavell explains it from the mast, a precarious place to climb.[13] The verb, to provide with poles, dates from 1573 in Barnhart and 1625 in the OED;[3][5] to strike with a pole is recorded from 1687 and to push a boat with one from 1769.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1050 – a stake.[9][3]
  • 1391 – the shaft of a carriage.[5]
  • c. 1450 – a ship's mast.[5]
  • before 1500 – a measure of length used in surveying, a perch.[5]
  • 1533 – a pole as a trade sign, now a barber's pole.[5]
  • 1573 – verb, to provide with poles.[3] The OED dates this sense to 1625.[5]
  • 1577 – a fishing rod.[5]
  • 1769 – verb, to push a boat with a pole.[5]
  • 1851 – in horse racing, the inside rails, and the starting position nearest them.[5]
  • 1868 – the rod used in the pole vault.[5]
  • 1976 – in motor racing, the pole position.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A long, slender, usually rounded piece of wood, metal or other material: a tent pole.[14][2][5][15]
  2. The shaft extending from the front of a carriage or wagon, to which the draught animals are harnessed; a tongue.[14][15][5]
  3. (historical) A unit of length of 5½ yards, a rod or perch; also a square measure of land.[14][6][5]
  4. The pole position in a motor race; in horse racing, the inside lane of the course.[14][5]
  5. A ski pole.[5][15]

Verb

  1. To push a boat or raft forward with a pole: He poled the punt along the river.[15][2][5]
  2. To support plants with poles.[15][2][5]
  3. To strike, poke or stir with a pole.[15][5][16]

Word family

  • beanpole
  • flagpole
  • maypole
  • poler
  • poleless

pole2 end of an axis

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1380 Chaucer's translation of Boethius
Borrowed from
Middle French pole via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek πόλος
Etymology tree of pole2
inherited borrowed derived
Ancient Greek πόλος
Latin polus
English pole
The journey of pole2
From the same root · pole2
Latin polaris ← polus

Etymology

The word for the end of an axis is inherited from Middle English pool, later pole,[3][2] borrowed from Middle French pole and directly borrowed from Latin polus (“end of an axis; the sky”),[5][3][6][8] from Ancient Greek πόλος (pólos, “pivot, axis, sky”).[5][3][7][8][17] The French word meant the celestial pole from about 1220 and the terrestrial one by 1377.[5] The Greek noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn, revolve”),[7][1][8] the source also of wheel,[1][3][2] and Klein relates it to πέλω (pélō, “to be in motion, to be”).[8] Related forms are Italian polo, Spanish polo, Dutch pool and German Pol.[17]

Earliest recorded meaning

Each of the two points of the heavens about which the stars seem to turn: Barnhart finds pool about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius, and pole in 1391;[3] Weekley also gives Chaucer's sense as the two fixed points of the celestial sphere.[17] The OED's first record is for either end of the earth's axis, about 1392, in the Equatorie of the Planetis, followed by the celestial pole before 1398, in Trevisa.[5]

Semantic evolution

Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe (1391) already used the word in geometry, for the points where the axis of a circle on a sphere meets its surface.[5] Figurative uses, a pivotal principle or one of two opposed ones, followed from the 16th century,[5] part of a wider pattern of describing mathematical ideas in terms of the cardinal points.[18] The phrase from pole to pole, all over the world, is recorded from 1573, and in poetry pole could mean the sky (1572), a sense now archaic.[5] The magnetic sense, either end of a magnet, dates from about 1575, and the earth's magnetic pole from 1581.[5] An electric terminal has been a pole since 1777, and poles apart, completely different, is recorded from 1830.[5] Ayto notes that polar is an anglicization of the Modern Latin coinage New Latin polāris.[1]

Timeline

  • c. 1380 – pool, the celestial pole, in Chaucer's Boethius.[3]
  • 1391 – in geometry, either point where the axis of a circle on a sphere meets its surface.[5]
  • c. 1392 – either end of the earth's axis.[5]
  • before 1550 – figurative, a pivotal or opposed principle.[5]
  • 1572 – poetic, the sky.[5]
  • 1573 – from pole to pole, all over the world.[5]
  • c. 1575 – either end of a magnet.[5]
  • 1581 – the earth's magnetic pole.[5]
  • 1777 – a terminal of an electric cell.[5]
  • 1830 – poles apart.[5]
  • 1961 – verb, to make a ferroelectric material polar.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Either end of the axis of a sphere.[2][15][5]
  2. Either of the two points on the earth's surface at the ends of its axis, the north and south poles.[2][15][5]
  3. Either of the two points in the sky about which the stars seem to turn; a celestial pole.[15][5]
  4. Either of the two regions of a magnet where the magnetic force is strongest; also a magnetic pole of the earth.[15][5]
  5. Either of the two terminals of an electric cell or battery.[15][5]
  6. Either of two opposed ideas, principles or tendencies: Their views were poles apart.[2][5]

Verb

  1. (physics) To make a ferroelectric material polar by applying a strong electric field.[5][16]

Word family

  • polestar

Usage notes

Pole, a native of Poland, has a separate source, probably Middle Low German pōle, ultimately from Old Polish;[5] so does the flatfish pole (1668), also called witch, from French.[5][16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Flavell, Linda; Flavell, Roger (1992), Dictionary of Idioms and their Origins, London: Kyle Cathie
  14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  16. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  17. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  18. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pole.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/pole. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

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