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Poll   /poʊl/   Listen
noun
Poll  n.  A parrot; familiarly so called.



Poll  n.  One who does not try for honors, but is content to take a degree merely; a passman. (Cambridge Univ., Eng.)



Poll  n.  
1.
The head; the back part of the head. "All flaxen was his poll."
2.
A number or aggregate of heads; a list or register of heads or individuals. "We are the greater poll, and in true fear They gave us our demands." "The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll."
3.
Specifically, the register of the names of electors who may vote in an election.
4.
The casting or recording of the votes of registered electors; as, the close of the poll. "All soldiers quartered in place are to remove... and not to return till one day after the poll is ended."
5.
pl. The place where the votes are cast or recorded; as, to go to the polls.
6.
The broad end of a hammer; the but of an ax.
7.
(Zool.) The European chub. See Pollard, 3 (a).
Poll book, a register of persons entitled to vote at an election.
Poll evil (Far.), an inflammatory swelling or abscess on a horse's head, confined beneath the great ligament of the neck.
Poll pick (Mining), a pole having a heavy spike on the end, forming a kind of crowbar.
Poll tax, a tax levied by the head, or poll; a capitation tax.



verb
Poll  v. t.  (past & past part. polled; pres. part. polling)  
1.
To remove the poll or head of; hence, to remove the top or end of; to clip; to lop; to shear; as, to poll the head; to poll a tree. "When he (Absalom) pollled his head." "His death did so grieve them that they polled themselves; they clipped off their horse and mule's hairs."
2.
To cut off; to remove by clipping, shearing, etc.; to mow or crop; sometimes with off; as, to poll the hair; to poll wool; to poll grass. "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."
3.
To extort from; to plunder; to strip. (Obs.) "Which polls and pills the poor in piteous wise."
4.
To impose a tax upon. (Obs.)
5.
To pay as one's personal tax. "The man that polled but twelve pence for his head."
6.
To enter, as polls or persons, in a list or register; to enroll, esp. for purposes of taxation; to enumerate one by one. "Polling the reformed churches whether they equalize in number those of his three kingdoms."
7.
To register or deposit, as a vote; to elicit or call forth, as votes or voters; as, he polled a hundred votes more than his opponent. "And poll for points of faith his trusty vote."
8.
(Law) To cut or shave smooth or even; to cut in a straight line without indentation; as, a polled deed.
To poll a jury, to call upon each member of the jury to answer individually as to his concurrence in a verdict which has been rendered.



Poll  v. i.  To vote at an election.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Poll" Quotes from Famous Books



... passed taxing imported slaves, because it had "been found very easy to the subjects of this colony, and no ways burthensome to the traders in slaves." The additional reason for continuing the law was, "that a competent revenue" might be raised "for preventing or lessening a poll-tax."[167] And in 1738, this law being "found, by experience, to be an easy expedient for raising a revenue towards the lessening a pooll-tax, always grievous to the people of this colony, and is in no way burthensom to the traders in slaves," ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... no one else would. They were ungrateful and undeserving, and quarreled constantly among themselves, so that his home could have been no peaceful spot. "Williams hates everybody," he writes; "Levett hates Desmoulins and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them." It does not sound peaceful ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... that the Horizontals and the Perpendiculars had made so many spurious and mystified ballots, in order to propitiate the Tangents, and to cheat each other, that this young blackguard actually stood at the head of the poll!—a political phenomenon, as I subsequently discovered, however, by no means of rare occurrence in the Leaplow history of the periodical selection ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the skeleton seemed to play off here. It had stuck election-bills on the walls, which the wind and rain had deteriorated into suitable rags. It had even summed up the state of the poll, in chalk, on the shutters of one ruined house. It adjured the free and independent starvers to vote for Thisman and vote for Thatman; not to plump, as they valued the state of parties and the national prosperity (both of great importance to them, I think); but, by returning ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... twenty-five days distant, on the border of the kingdom of Persia. They are under the authority of the king of Persia, and he raises a tribute from them through the hands of his officer, and the tribute which they pay every year by way of poll tax is one gold amir, which is equivalent to one and one-third maravedi. [This tax has to be paid by all males in the land of Islam who are over the age of fifteen.] At this place (Amadia), there arose this day ten years ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela


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