pollard

Etymology

It is formed from English poll + -ard.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} For a hornless animal, a lopped tree and bran, the base is the verb meaning to cut off the top or crop the hair,^[3][2][5][8] itself from the noun meaning head, polle, which is from or related to Middle Low German pol (“head, top”) or pol.^[2][9] The name of the coin, recorded earlier, was apparently formed separately from that noun, after the coin's device, a bare head without a crown or garland;^[3][5][10] the OED notes that pollardus, from 1299 in British sources, implies an earlier English use.^[3] The obsolete name of the chub was formed from the same noun, apparently because of the fish's large head.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A foreign coin imitating the English silver penny of Edward I, its bust bare-headed: before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's Polychronicon.^[3][5] Merriam-Webster also dates the word to the 14th century in this sense.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The coins, made mostly in the Low Countries and current in England in the late 13th century, gave the oldest sense.^[3][10] The derivative of the verb is recorded from about 1523, for awnless wheat,^[3] and since 1546 for a stag that had cast its antlers, later a hornless animal of a normally horned kind or breed;^[3][2][5] Hoad and Collins date the hornless animal to the 16th century.^[4][11] By 1587 it was also bran sifted from flour, a sense now chiefly Australian.^[3][10] The tree cut back to its trunk to make it grow a dense head of shoots is recorded in 1588 in the OED,^[3] and in Etymonline since the 1610s;^[2] such trees were cut for basket-making and other uses.^[2] Johnson (1755) gives "a tree lopped" first and "a clipped coin" second.^[12] The verb, to cut back a tree in this way, followed in 1670, in Evelyn's Sylva,^[3][10] and Dickens once used pollard humorously for bald-headed (1856).^[3] In Hampshire dialect a pollard was a large post.^[13]

Timeline

• before 1387 – a base coin imitating the English penny.^[3][10]
• c. 1523 – adjective, of wheat, awnless.^[3]
• 1546 – a stag that has cast its antlers; later a hornless animal.^[3][2]
• 1585 – the chub (obsolete by 1721).^[3][5]
• 1587 – bran sifted from flour.^[3]
• 1588 – a tree cut back to the trunk.^[3]
• 1638 – adjective, of a tree, pollarded.^[3]
• 1670 – verb, to cut back the trunk and branches of a tree.^[3][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tree whose top and branches have been cut back to the trunk so that it grows a dense head of new shoots: a row of willow pollards along the river.^[11][10][3]
2. An animal such as a sheep, ox or deer that has lost or shed its horns or antlers, or one of a hornless breed.^[11][10][5]
3. A coarse bran, or bran mixed with fine flour, used especially as animal feed.^[10][3]
4. A base coin of foreign origin that passed for a penny in England in the late 13th century.^[10][5][3]

Verb

1. To cut back the top and branches of a tree; to make a pollard of: The council pollards the plane trees every winter.^[11][10][3]

Adjective

1. Of a tree, pollarded.^[10][3]

Related words

• poll
• -ard

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)