bole

• (General American) IPA^(key): /bol/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bəʊl/, /bɒʊl/
  • (doll–dole merger) IPA^(key): /bɒl/
• Rhymes: -əʊl
• Homophone: bowl

From Middle English bole, from Old Norse bolr, akin to Danish bul and German Bohle (“plank”). See also bulwark (“defensive wall”).

bole (plural boles)

1. The trunk or stem of a tree.
   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “A Dream of Fair Women”, in Poems, volume 1, page 188:

     Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean / Upon the dusky brushwood underneath / Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green, / New from its silken sheath.

   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:

     A fine powder filled the air and caressed the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below.

From Ancient Greek βῶλος (bôlos, “clod or lump of earth”): compare French bol. Doublet of bolus.

bole (countable and uncountable, plural boles)

1. Any of several varieties of friable earthy clay, usually coloured red by iron oxide, and composed essentially of hydrous silicates of alumina, or more rarely of magnesia.
   • 2018 April 14, “8 things to know about İznik pottery”, in Christie's‎^[1]:

     Good Iznik has strong colours well-contained within their outlines and a very clean, clear white. The red colour, made with Armenian bole (an earthy clay) should be thick and proud of the surface.

2. The shade of reddish brown which resembles this clay.

   bole:  

3. (obsolete) A bolus; a dose.
   • 1649, Jeremy Taylor, “An Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy Against the Pretence of the Spirit”, in Charles Page Eden, editor, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., volume V, published 1849, page 294:

     […] or else […] the churches were very incurious to swallow such a bole, if no pretension could have been reasonably made for their justification.

bole (plural boles)

1. Alternative form of boll (old unit of measure).
   • 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC:

     Take then good Barley newly thrashed and well purged from the Chaff, and put thereof eight Boles, that is about ſix English Quarters, in a Stone - trough

bole (plural boles)

1. (Scotland) An aperture with a shutter in the wall of a house, to admit air or light.
   • 1816, Walter Scott, The Antiquary, Adam and Charles Black, published 1862, page 220:

     "Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her daughter-in-law, “open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the right Lord Geraldin […] .

2. (Scotland) A small closet.

• Belo, Lebo, Loeb, lobe

• bolle

Variant of bolle. Occurs exclusively in the plural form.

bole m pl

1. testicles

• bile
• ballë
• mbjell
• pjell

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *balay.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɔɺ̢ɛ/

bole

1. house

• boleje (verb)

• IPA^(key): [ˈbolɛ]
• Rhymes: -olɛ
• Hyphenation: bo‧le

bole

1. vocative singular of bol

bole

1. present masculine singular transgressive of bolet

Perhaps related to Vai [script needed] (boi, “structure without walls”) or Mende (Sierra Leone) bolo (“courthouse with high walls”) (having the definite form bolei.

bole

1. courthouse

• Dalby, T. D. P. (1963), “The extinct language of Dama”, in Sierra Leone Language Review, volume 2, Freetown: Fourah Bay College, pages 50–54

bole

1. third-person singular present indicative of bulir
2. (reintegrationist norm) inflection of bulir:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

From English bowl, probably via German Bowle. Alternative historical forms: bols. First attested use to mean a bowl for making punch – 1880. First attested use to refer to the beverage itself – 1886.^[1]

• IPA^(key): [būōle]

• Audio:

  (file)

bole f (5th declension)

1. (dated sense) a bowl for making punch

   Bowle: bole (punša un citu tādu dzērienu kauss) – Bowle (German): bole (a bowl for punch or similar drinks).^[2]

2. punch (drink made of wine, diluted with juices, syrups and fruit, often with added cognac or rhum)

   zemeņu bole – strawberry punch

   boles trauks – punch bowl

• (punch): punšs

bole

1. superseded spelling of bóle

From a conflation of Old English bula, *bulla, and Old Norse boli, both from Proto-Germanic *bulô.

• bule, bul, bolle, boule, bool, boole

• IPA^(key): /ˈbul(ə)/, /ˈboːl(ə)/, /ˈbɔːl(ə)/

bole (plural boles or bolen)

2. bull, steer, male cow
3. (heraldry) A heraldic bull
4. (astrology) Taurus (zodiac)
5. (astronomy) Taurus (constellation)

• English: bull
• Scots: bul, bull

• “bōle, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 3 April 2018.

Borrowed from Old Norse bolr.

• boole, bol

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɔːl/

bole (plural boles)

2. trunk, bole
3. tree

• English: bole

• “bōle, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 3 April 2018.

From Old High German bolla, from Proto-West Germanic *bollā.

Compare Middle Low German bōle, Low German Bohle, German Bohle, Dutch boel (“plank, board”).

bole f

1. plank, board, thick wooden board

• German: Bohle
• Low German: Bohle
• Middle Low German: bōle

• Benecke, Georg Friedrich; Müller, Wilhelm; Zarncke, Friedrich (1863), “bole”, in Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch: mit Benutzung des Nachlasses von Benecke, Stuttgart: S. Hirzel
• Köbler, Gerhard (2014), “bole”, in Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch‎^[2] (in German), 3rd edition

Clipping of anabol + -e

bole (present tense boler, past tense bolte, past participle bolt)

1. (colloquial) To use anabolic steroids to increase one's muscle mass.

• IPA^(key): [ˈbo.le]

  • Audio:

    (file)

bole

1. banana

• Perangin Angin, Dalan Mehuli (2023), Kamus Pagu-Indonesia-Inggris, Jakarta: Penerbit BRIN

Perhaps a dialectal variant of bal (“ball, dance”), as it was glossed as zabawa (“fun, amusement”) in a folklore lexicon.^[1]

• (Lesser Poland):
  • (Przemyśl) IPA^(key): [ˈbɔ.lʲɛ]

bole n

1. (Przemyśl) synonym of gościna

   Zaprosiuł na bole. ― He invited [them] to a visit.

• Aleksander Saloni (1899), “bole”, in “Lud wiejski w okolicy Przeworska”, in M. Arct, E. Lubowski, editors, Wisła : miesięcznik gieograficzno-etnograficzny‎^[3] (in Polish), volume 13, Warsaw: Artur Gruszecki, page 237

bole

1. inflection of bolar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative
2. inflection of bulir:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative
3. inflection of bolir:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

bole (Cyrillic spelling боле)

1. feminine plural active past participle of bosti

From Malay boleh (“can, may, possible”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈbo.l̪e/

bole

1. good, fine!

• Clemens Voorhoeve (1982), The Makian languages and their neighbours‎^[4], Pacific linguistics