hole

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /həʊl/, [hɔʊɫ]
  • (doll–dole merger) IPA^(key): /hɒl/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /hɐʉl/, [hɔʊɫ]

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /hoʊl/, [hoɫ]

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (Canada) IPA^(key): [hoːɫ]
  • (Scotland) IPA^(key): /hol/, [hoɫ]
• Rhymes: -əʊl
• Homophone: whole

Inherited from Middle English hole, hol, from Old English hol (“orifice, hollow place, cavity”), from Proto-West Germanic *hol (“hole”), from Proto-Germanic *hulą (“hollow space, cavity”), noun derivative of Proto-Germanic *hulaz (“hollow”), which is of uncertain ultimate origin. Related to hollow.

Cognate with Dutch, Faroese, and Icelandic hol (“hole”), Danish hul (“hole”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norn hola (“hole”), Norwegian Bokmål hol (“depression, hole, cavern”), Swedish hål (“hole”), French houle (“swell of water”). Compare unrelated Finnish kolo (“hole”).

hole (plural holes)

1. A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; a dent; a depression; a fissure.

   I made a blind hole in the wall for a peg.  I dug a hole and planted a tree in it.

   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii]:

     To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:

     Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. Indeed, a nail filed sharp is not of much avail as an arrowhead; you must have it barbed, and that was a little beyond our skill.

2. An opening that goes all the way through a solid body, a fabric, etc.; a perforation; a rent.

   There’s a hole in my shoe.  Her stocking has a hole in it.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Kings 12:9:

     The priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid.

   • 1840, Alfred Tennyson, Godiva:

     […] her palfrey’s footfall shot
     Light horrors thro’ her pulses: the blind walls
     Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
     Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: […]

3. (heading) In games.
   1. (golf) A subsurface standard-size hole, also called cup, hitting the ball into which is the object of play. Each hole, of which there are usually eighteen as the standard on a full course, is located on a prepared surface, called the green, of a particular type grass.
   2. (golf) The part of a game in which a player attempts to hit the ball into one of the holes.

      I played 18 holes yesterday.  The second hole today cost me three strokes over par.

   3. (baseball) The rear portion of the defensive team between the shortstop and the third baseman.

      The shortstop ranged deep into the hole to make the stop.

   4. (chess) A square on the board, with some positional significance, that a player does not, and cannot in the future, control with a friendly pawn.
   5. (stud poker) A card (also called a hole card) dealt face down thus unknown to all but its holder; the status in which such a card is.
   6. In the game of fives, part of the floor of the court between the step and the pepperbox.
4. (archaeology, slang) An excavation pit or trench.
5. (figuratively) A weakness; a flaw or ambiguity.

   I have found a hole in your argument.

   • 2011, Fun, “We Are Young”:

     But between the drinks and subtle things / The holes in my apologies, you know / I’m trying hard to take it back

6. (physics) In semiconductors, a lack of an electron in an occupied band behaving like a positively charged particle.
7. (computing) A security vulnerability in software which can be taken advantage of by an exploit.
8. (slang, vulgar) Any bodily orifice.
   1. (derogatory) A person's mouth.

      Just shut your hole!

   2. The anus.
   3. The vagina.
10. (informal, with "the") Solitary confinement, a high-security prison cell often used as punishment.

    Synonym: box

    • 1988 April 2, Ed Mead, “AIDS hysteria sweeps prison guards' union”, in Gay Community News, page 9:

      In late December a Washington State prisoner was involved in a scuffle with a guard who was trying to take him into the hole.

    • 2011, Ahmariah Jackson, IAtomic Seven, Locked Up but Not Locked Down:

      Disciplinary actions can range from a mere write up to serious time in the hole.

11. (slang) An undesirable place to live or visit.

    His apartment is a hole!

    • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 109:

      I have often heard people say, "One can't live upon a view," and I have heard some of the most beautiful places called "awful holes," simply because of the monotonous lives led in them.

12. (figurative) Difficulty, in particular, debt.

    If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

    • 1923, Ernest Bramah, The Eyes of Max Carrados:

      "Don't you see the hole it has put me into? […] Of course it was too late to have any alteration printed on the first night and now Miss Roscastle is the draw of the piece.

13. (graph theory) A chordless cycle in a graph.
14. (slang, rail transport) A passing loop; a siding provided for trains traveling in opposite directions on a single-track line to pass each other.

    We’re supposed to take the hole at Cronk and wait for the Limited to pass.

15. (Canada, US, historical) A mountain valley.

    Jackson Hole

• See also Thesaurus:hole
• (solitary confinement): administrative segregation, ad-seg, block (UK), box, cooler (UK), hotbox, lockdown, pound, SCU, security housing unit, SHU, special handling unit

• → Japanese: ホール (hōru)
• → Korean: 홀 (hol)
• Sranan Tongo: olo

hole (third-person singular simple present holes, present participle holing, simple past and past participle holed)

1. (transitive) To make holes in (an object or surface).

   Shrapnel holed the ship's hull.

2. (transitive, by extension) To destroy.

   She completely holed the argument.

3. (intransitive) To go into a hole.
   • 1631, Ben Jonson, The Staple of News, act IV, scene ii:

     Good master Picklock, with your worming brain,
     And wriggling engine-head of maintenance,
     Which I shall see you hole with very shortly!
     A fine round head, when those two lugs are off,
     To trundle through a pillory!

4. (transitive) To drive into a hole, as an animal, or a billiard ball or golf ball.
   • 1799, Sporting Magazine, volume 13, page 49:

     If the player holes the red ball, he scores three, and upon holing his adversary's ball, he gains two; and thus it frequently happens, that seven are got upon a single stroke, by caramboling and holing both balls.

   Woods holed a standard three foot putt

5. (transitive) To cut, dig, or bore a hole or holes in.

   to hole a post for the insertion of rails or bars

hole (comparative holer or more hole, superlative holest or most hole)

1. Obsolete spelling of whole.
   • 1843, Sir George Webbe Dasent (translator), A grammar of the Icelandic or Old Norse tongue (originally by Rasmus Christian Rask)

     Such was the arrangement of the alphabet over the hole North.

2. Misspelling of whole.

• Hoel, OHLE, helo, ohel, oleh

• IPA^(key): [ˈɦolɛ]

hole

1. inflection of hůl:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative/vocative plural

hole

1. masculine singular present transgressive of holit

• IPA^(key): /ˈhoːlə/
• Rhymes: -oːlə

hole

1. inflection of holen:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /hóː.lèː/
  • (Standard Kano Hausa) IPA^(key): [hóː.lèː]

hōlḕ (grade 4)

1. to relax, to enjoy oneself

Inherited from Old English hol.

• hoil, hol, holle, houl, hul, ol, ole

hole (plural holes or holen)

2. hole

• English: hole (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: hole
• Yola: hullès (plural)

• “hō̆l(e, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Inherited from Old English hulu; see hull for more.

• hoile, hol, holle, hul, hule, hulle, huole, ule, ulle

hole (plural holes)

1. hull (the outer covering of a fruit or seed)
2. hut, shelter
3. hull (of a ship)

• English: hull
• Scots: huil

• “hol(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

hole

1. alternative form of hol (“whole”)

hole

1. alternative form of hole (“whole”)

hole

1. alternative form of hole (“wholly”)

hole

1. alternative form of hol (“hollow”)

hole

1. alternative form of holy (“holy”)

hole

1. alternative form of oile (“oil”)

hole (holen)

1. alternative form of oule (“owl”)

• holn

hole

1. past participle of helen (“to cover”)

   Synonym: heled

Derived from Old Norse hola.

hole f or m (definite singular hola or holen, indefinite plural holer, definite plural holene)

1. alternative form of hule

• “hole” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• hòle

Derived from Old Norse hola.

• IPA^(key): /²hoːlə/

hole f (definite singular hola, indefinite plural holer, definite plural holene)

1. cave
2. (anatomy) cavity
3. den

• “hole” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /ˈxo.le/, [ˈho.le]

hole n

1. dative singular of hol

• IPA^(key): /ˈxoː.le/, [ˈhoː.le]

hōle n

1. dative singular of hōl

• IPA^(key): /ˈxoː.le/, [ˈhoː.le]

hōle n

1. dative singular of holh

Inherited from Middle High German holen, from Old High German holon, from Proto-West Germanic *holōn (“to fetch”). Compare German holen, Dutch halen. Related to English haul.

hole

1. to fetch

• IPA^(key): /ɦɔʎe/, (high register) [ˈɦɔʎe], (common) [ˈɦɔle]
• Rhymes: -ɔʎe
• Hyphenation: ho‧le

hole f

1. inflection of hoľa:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative plural

hole class 17 (uncountable)

1. far away

From Middle English hōle.

• IPA^(key): /hɔːl/

hole

1. past participle of helt
   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 3, page 84:

     Yith Muzleare had ba hole, t'was mee Tommeen,

     If Good-for-little had been buried, it had been my Tommy,

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 47