King James Bible Dictionary

POLE, noun [Latin palus. See Pale.]

1. A long slender piece of wood, or the stem of a small tree deprived of its branches. Thus seamen use poles for setting or driving boats in shallow water; the stems of small trees are used for hoops and called hoop-poles; the stems of small, but tall straight trees, are used as poles for supporting the scaffolding in building.

2. A rod; a perch; a measure of length of five yards and a half.

[In New England, rod is generally used.]

3. An instrument for measuring.

Bare poles. A ship is under bare poles, when her sails are all furled.

POLE, noun [Latin polus; Gr. to turn.]

1. In astronomy, one of the extremities of the axis on which the sphere revolves. These two points are called the poles of the world.

2. In spherics, a point equally distant from every part of the circumference of a great circle of the sphere; or it is a point 90 deg. distant from the plane of a circle, and in a line passing perpendicularly through the center, called the axis. Thus the zenith and nadir are the poles of the horizon.

3. In geography, the extremity of the earth's axis, or one of the points on the surface of our globe through which the axis passes.

4. The star which is vertical to the pole of the earth; the pole-star.

POLEs of the ecliptic, are two points on the surface of the sphere, 23 deg. 30' distant from the poles of the world.

Magnetic poles, two points in a lodestone, corresponding to the poles of the world; the one pointing to the north, the other to the south.

POLE, noun [from Poland.] A native of Poland.

POLE, verb transitive To furnish with poles for support; as, to pole beans.

1. To bear or convey on poles; as, to pole hay into a barn.

2. To impel by poles, as a boat; to push forward by the use of poles.

PO'LE-AX

PO'LE-AXE, noun An ax fixed to a pole or handle; or rather a sort of hatchet with a handle about fifteen inches in length, and a point or claw bending downward from the back of its head. It is principally used in actions at sea, to cut away the rigging of the enemy attempting to board; sometimes it is thrust into the side of a ship to assist in mounting the enemy's ship, and it is sometimes called a boarding-ax.

PO'LECAT, noun A quadruped of the genus Mustela; the fitchew or fitchet.

PO'LE-DAVY, noun A sort of coarse cloth.

POL'EMARCH, noun [Gr. war, and to rule, or chief.]

1. Anciently, a magistrate of Athens and Thebes, who had under his care all strangers and sojourners in the city, and all children of parents who had lost their lives in the service of their country.

2. A military officer in Lacedaemon.

POLEM'IC

POLEM'ICAL, adjective [Gr. war.]

1. Controversial; disputative; intended to maintain an opinion or system in opposition to others; as a polemic treatise, discourse, essay or book; polemic divinity.

2. Engaged in supporting an opinion or system by controversy; as a polemic writer.

POLEM'IC, noun A disputant; a controvertist; one who writes in support of an opinion or system in opposition to another.

POLEM'OSCOPE, noun [Gr. war, and to view.] An oblique perspective glass contrived for seeing objects that do not lie directly before the eye. It consists of a concave glass placed near a plane mirror in the end of a short round tube, and a convex glass in a hole in the side of the tube. It is called opera-glass, or diagonal opera-glass.

PO'LE-STAR, noun A star which is vertical, or nearly so, to the pole of the earth; a lodestar. The northern pole-star is of great use to navigators in the northern hemisphere.

1. That which serves as a guide or director.

PO'LEY, noun [Latin polium; Gr. white.] A plant. The poley grass is of the genus Lythrum.

POLY, in compound words, is from the Greek, and signifies many; as in polygon, a figure of many angles.

PO'LEY-GRASS, noun A plant of the genus Lythrum.

PO'LEY-MOUNTAIN, noun A plant of the genus Teucrium.