Etymology 1
From Middle English pol, polle ("scalp, pate"), from or cognate with Middle Dutch pol, pōle, polle (“top, summit; head”),[1] from Proto-West Germanic *poll, 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, scalp, skull”), Saterland Frisian pol (“round, full, brimming”, adj), German Low German Polle, Poll (“round object, ball”), German Low German Poller (“head, tree-top, bulb”), Danish puld (“crown of a hat”), Swedish dialectal pull (“head”).
Meaning "collection of votes" is first recorded 1625, from the notion of "counting heads".
Noun
poll (plural polls)
- A survey of people, usually statistically analyzed to gauge wider public opinion.
- Synonym: survey
- A formal vote held in order to ascertain the most popular choice.
- Synonyms: vote, election
The student council had a poll to see what people want served in the cafeteria.
1942 May-June, Charles E. Lee, “The Brampton Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 140, relating to an election in 1837:The other returns having come in, the result of the poll, that Sir James Graham had been superseded by Major Aglionby, was declared at Carlisle soon after 11 a.m.
- A polling place (usually as plural, polling places)
The polls close at 8 p.m.
- The result of the voting, the total number of votes recorded.
- (now rare outside veterinary contexts) The head, particularly the scalp or pate upon which hair (normally) grows.
- Synonym: scalp
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..
2005, Stuart W. Pyhrr, Donald J. LaRocca, Dirk H. Breiding, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), The Armored Horse in Europe, 1480-1620, Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN, page 53:The main plate is formed in two halves, the upper plate having small sideplates, ear guards, an escutcheon plate (blank), and a brass plume-holder, as well as a hinged poll plate.
- (in extended senses of the above) A mass of people, a mob or muster, considered as a head count.
c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:We are the greater poll, and in true fear
They gave us our demands.
c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll.
- The broad or butt end of an axe or a hammer.
- The pollard or European chub, a kind of fish.
Translations
a survey of a particular group
— see also survey
- Belarusian: апыта́нне n (apytánnje)
- Bulgarian: анкета (bg) f (anketa)
- Catalan: enquesta (ca) f, sondatge m, sondeig (ca) m
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: 投票 (zh) (tóupiào), 選舉 / 选举 (zh) (xuǎnjǔ)
- Czech: anketa (cs) f
- Esperanto: enketo
- Faroese: spurnakanning f
- Finnish: äänestys (fi), mielipidemittaus
- French: sondage (fr) m
- Galician: enquisa (gl) f
- Georgian: გამოკითხვა (gamoḳitxva)
- German: Umfrage (de) f
- Greek: ψηφοφορία (el) f (psifoforía), δημοσκόπηση (el) f (dimoskópisi)
- Hungarian: közvélemény-kutatás (hu)
- Interlingua: inquesta
- Irish: vótaíocht f
- Italian: sondaggio (it) m
- Korean: 투표(投票) (ko) (tupyo), 여론조사(輿論調査) (yeoronjosa)
- Ladino: anketa f
- Occitan: sondatge (oc) m
- Polish: ankieta (pl) f
- Portuguese: enquete (pt) f, sondagem, sugestões, inquérito (pt), avaliação (pt), pesquisa (pt)
- Russian: опро́с (ru) m (oprós)
- Serbo-Croatian: anketa (sh) f
- Spanish: encuesta (es) f, sondeo (es) m
- Swedish: opinionsundersökning (sv) c
- Ukrainian: опи́тування n (opýtuvannja)
- Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can
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polling place, a place to vote
- Bulgarian: помещение за гласуване n (pomeštenie za glasuvane)
- Faroese: valstað n
- Finnish: äänestyspaikka (fi)
- Georgian: საარჩევნო უბანი (saarčevno ubani)
- German: Wahllokal (de) n
- Greek: εκλογικό κέντρο (el) n (eklogikó kéntro)
- Hungarian: szavazóhelyiség (hu), szavazókör (hu)
- Portuguese: urna (pt) m
- Russian: избира́тельный уча́сток (ru) m (izbirátelʹnyj učástok), избира́тельный пункт m (izbirátelʹnyj punkt)
- Ukrainian: ви́борча дільни́ця f (výborča dilʹnýcja)
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the result of the voting, the total number of votes recorded
Verb
poll (third-person singular simple present polls, present participle polling, simple past and past participle polled)
- (transitive) To take, record the votes of (an electorate).
- (transitive) To solicit mock votes from (a person or group).
- (intransitive) To vote at an election.
1844, B[enjamin] Disraeli, chapter IV, in Coningsby; or, The New Generation. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, book V, page 271:Mr. Millbank's friends were not disheartened, as it was known that the leading members of Mr. Rigby's Committee had polled; whereas his opponent's were principally reserved.
- 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.
1717, Thomas Tickell, An Epistle from a Lady in England to a Gentleman at Avignon:poll for points of faith his trusty vote
- To cut off; to remove by clipping, shearing, etc.; to mow or crop.
to poll the hair; to poll wool; to poll grass
[1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC: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.
- (transitive) To cut the hair of (a creature).
- 1579-1603, Thomas North, Plutarch's Lives
- His death did so grieve them that they polled themselves; they clipped off their horse and mule's hairs.
- (transitive) To remove the horns of (an animal).
- To remove the top or end of; to clip; to lop.
to poll a tree
- (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.
- (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.
- (obsolete) To extort from; to plunder; to strip. Especially in conjunction with pill for emphasis.
1579, Thomas North, Plutarch's Parallel Lives, Life of Brutus, paragraph 35:they slew Julius Caesar, who neither pilled nor polled the country but only was a favorer and suborner of all them that did rob and spoil, by his countenance and authority.
- To impose a tax upon.
- To pay as one's personal tax.
- To enter, as polls or persons, in a list or register; to enroll, especially for purposes of taxation; to enumerate one by one.
- (law) To cut or shave smooth or even; to cut in a straight line without indentation[2]
a polled deed
Translations
to solicit mock votes from (a person or group)
to remove the horns of (an animal)
Adjective
poll
- (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.
References
Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. "poll, n.1" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2006.
Alexander M[ansfield] Burrill (1850–1851) “POLL”, in A New Law Dictionary and Glossary: […], volume (please specify |part= or |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: John S. Voorhies, […], →OCLC.
Etymology 2
Perhaps a shortening of Polly, a common name for pet parrots.
Etymology 3
From Ancient Greek πολλοί (polloí, “the many, the masses”), as in hoi polloi.
References
- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967