poll

From Middle English pol, polle ("scalp, pate"), probably from or else cognate with Middle Dutch pol, pōle, polle (“top, summit; head”),[1] from Proto-Germanic *pullaz (“round object, head, top”), from Proto-Indo-European *bolno-, *bōwl- (“orb, round object, bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”). Akin to Scots pow (“head, crown, skalp, skull”), Saterland Frisian pol (“round, full, brimming”), Low German polle (“head, tree-top, bulb”), Danish puld (“crown of a hat”), Swedish dialectal pull (“head”). Meaning "collection of votes" is first recorded 1625, from notion of "counting heads".

• pol, pole

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /pɔl/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /pəʊl/, /pɔʊl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /poʊl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophones: pole, Pole

poll (plural polls)

1. A survey of people, usually statistically analyzed to gauge wider public opinion.
2. A formal election.

   The student council had a poll to see what people want served in the cafeteria.

   • Blackstone

     All soldiers quartered in place are to remove […] and not to return till one day after the poll is ended.

3. A polling place (usually as plural, polling places)

   The polls close at 8 p.m.

4. (now rare outside veterinary contexts) The head, particularly the scalp or pate upon which hair (normally) grows.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     ...the doctor, as if to hear better, had taken off his powdered wig, and sat there, looking very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll.

   • 1908, O. Henry, A Tempered Wind

     And you might perceive the president and general manager, Mr. R. G. Atterbury, with his priceless polished poll, busy in the main office room dictating letters..

5. (in extended senses of the above) A mass of people, a mob or muster, considered as a head count.
   • Shakespeare

     We are the greater poll, and in true fear / They gave us our demands.

   • Shakespeare

     The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll.

6. The broad or butt end of an axe or a hammer.
7. The pollard or European chub, a kind of fish.

• (election or survey): election, survey
• (top of head): See scalp

• go to the polls
• opinion poll
• polling
• straw poll

poll (third-person singular simple present polls, present participle polling, simple past and past participle polled)

1. (transitive) To take, record the votes of (an electorate).
2. (transitive) To solicit mock votes from (a person or group).
3. (intransitive) To vote at an election.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Beaconsfield to this entry?)

4. To register or deposit, as a vote; to elicit or call forth, as votes or voters.

   He polled a hundred votes more than his opponent.

   • Tickell

     poll for points of faith his trusty vote

5. To cut off; to remove by clipping, shearing, etc.; to mow or crop.

   to poll the hair; to poll wool; to poll grass

   • Chapman

     Who, as he polled off his dart's head, so sure he had decreed / That all the counsels of their war he would poll off like it.

6. (transitive) To cut the hair of (a creature).
   • Bible, 2 Sam. xiv. 26

     when he [Absalom] polled his head

   • Sir T. North

     His death did so grieve them that they polled themselves; they clipped off their horse and mule's hairs.

7. (transitive) To remove the horns of (an animal).
8. To remove the top or end of; to clip; to lop.

   to poll a tree

9. (transitive, computing, communication) To (repeatedly) request the status of something (such as a computer or printer on a network).

   The network hub polled the department's computers to determine which ones could still respond.

10. (intransitive, with adverb) To be judged in a poll.
    • 2008, Joanne McEvoy, The politics of Northern Ireland (page 171)

      The election was a resounding defeat for Robert McCartney who polled badly in the six constituencies he contested and even lost his own Assembly seat in North Down.

11. (obsolete) To extort from; to plunder; to strip.
    • Spenser

      which polls and pills the poor in piteous wise

12. To impose a tax upon.
13. To pay as one's personal tax.
    • Dryden

      the man that polled but twelve pence for his head

14. To enter, as polls or persons, in a list or register; to enroll, especially for purposes of taxation; to enumerate one by one.
    • Milton

      polling the reformed churches whether they equalize in number those of his three kingdoms

15. (law) To cut or shave smooth or even; to cut in a straight line without indentation.

    a polled deed

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Burrill to this entry?)

poll

1. (of kinds of livestock which typically have horns) Bred without horns, and thus hornless.

   Poll Hereford

   Red Poll cows

   • 1757, The monthly review, or, literary journal, volume 17, page 416:

     Sheep, that is, the Horned sort, and those without Horns, called Poll Sheep [...]

   • 1960, Frank O'Loghlen, Frank H. Johnston, Cattle country: an illustrated survey of the Australian beef cattle industry, a complete directory of the studs, page 85:

     About 15000 cattle, comprising 10000 Hereford and Poll Hereford, 4000 Aberdeen Angus and 1000 Shorthorn and Poll Shorthorn, are grazed [...]

   • 1970, The Pastoral review, volume 80, page 457:

     Otherwise, both horned and poll sheep continue to be bred from an inner stud.

Perhaps a shortening of Polly, a common name for pet parrots.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɒl/

poll (plural polls)

1. A pet parrot.

From Ancient Greek πολλοί (polloí, “the many, the masses”)

• IPA^(key): /pɒl/

poll (plural polls)

1. (Britain, dated, Cambridge University) One who does not try for honors at university, but is content to take a degree merely; a passman.

• gentleman's C

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /ˈpoʎ/

From Old Occitan, from Latin pullus, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *polH- (“animal young”).

poll m (plural polls)

1. chicken (bird)

• pollet

• pollastre

From Old Occitan, from Late Latin peduclus < peduculus, variant of Latin pēdīculus, from pēdis, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pesd-.

poll m (plural polls)

1. louse (insect)

• pollós

• llémena

• “poll” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

• Audio

  (file)

poll

1. first-person singular present indicative of pollen
2. imperative of pollen

poll

1. Imperative singular of pollen.
2. (colloquial) First-person singular present of pollen.

poll

1. indefinite accusative singular of pollur

From Middle Irish poll (“hole”), from Old English pōl (compare English pool).

• (Galway) IPA^(key): /pˠəul̪ˠ/[1][2]

poll m (genitive singular poill, nominative plural poill)

1. hole
   1. storage pit; disposal pit; extraction pit
   2. pool, puddle; pond, sea
   3. burrow, lair
   4. dark, mean place (of prison)
   5. shaft, vent hole
   6. aperture
   7. (anatomy) orifice, cavity
   8. perforation
   9. (figuratively) leak
   10. pothole

• (pothole): linntreog

poll (present analytic pollann, future analytic pollfaidh, verbal noun polladh, past participle pollta)

1. (transitive, intransitive) hole; puncture, pierce, bore, perforate (make a hole in)

• polltóir (“perforator”)
• uchtbhalla pollta (“machicolation”)

• "poll" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.
• C. Marstrander, E. G. Quin et al., editors (1913–76), “poll”, in Dictionary of the Irish Language: Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, ISBN 9780901714299

poll

1. A head, particularly the scalp or pate upon which the hair (normally) grows

From Old Norse pollr.

• IPA^(key): /pɔlː/

poll m (definite singular pollen, indefinite plural pollar, definite plural pollane)

1. a small branch of a fjord, often with a narrow inlet

• “poll” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

poll m (genitive singular puill, plural puill)

1. mud, mire
2. pond, pool, bog

• poll-caca