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Poll vs Polls - What's the difference?

poll | polls |

As a proper noun poll

is or poll can be .

As a noun polls is

.

As a verb polls is

(poll).

poll

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) pol, polle . Meaning "collection of votes" is first recorded 1625, from notion of "counting heads".

Alternative forms

* pol, pole

Noun

(en noun)
  • An election or a survey of a particular group of people.
  • The student council had a poll to see what people want served in the cafeteria.
  • * Blackstone
  • All soldiers quartered in place are to remove and not to return till one day after the poll is ended.
  • A number or aggregate of heads; a list or register of individuals, especially electors.
  • * Shakespeare
  • We are the greater poll , and in true fear / They gave us our demands.
  • * Shakespeare
  • The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll .
  • (usually, as plural) A place where voters cast ballots.
  • The polls close at 8 p.m.
  • Hair
  • * 1883 ,
  • ...the doctor, as if to hear better, had taken off his powdered wig, and sat there, looking very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll .
  • The head, especially its top part.
  • * 1908 ,
  • 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..
  • The broad or butt end of an axe or a hammer.
  • A fish, the pollard or European chub.
  • Synonyms
    * (election or survey) election, survey * (hair) hair
    Derived terms
    * opinion poll * polling * rolly polly * straw poll * tadpole

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To take, record the votes of (an electorate).
  • To solicit mock votes from (a person or group).
  • To vote at an election.
  • (Beaconsfield)
  • 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.
  • * Tickell
  • 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
  • * Chapman
  • 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.
  • To cut the hair of (a creature).
  • * Bible, 2 Sam. xiv. 26
  • when he [Absalom] polled his head
  • * Sir T. North
  • His death did so grieve them that they polled themselves; they clipped off their horse and mule's hairs.
  • 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.
  • (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.
  • * Spenser
  • which polls and pills the poor in piteous wise
  • To impose a tax upon.
  • To pay as one's personal tax.
  • * Dryden
  • the man that polled but twelve pence for his head
  • To enter, as polls or persons, in a list or register; to enroll, especially for purposes of taxation; to enumerate one by one.
  • * Milton
  • polling the reformed churches whether they equalize in number those of his three kingdoms
  • (legal) To cut or shave smooth or even; to cut in a straight line without indentation.
  • a polled deed
    (Burrill)

    Adjective

    (head)
  • (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.

    Etymology 2

    Perhaps a shortening of (Polly), a common name for pet parrots.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A pet parrot.
  • Etymology 3

    From (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (UK, dated, Cambridge University) One who does not try for honors at university, but is content to take a degree merely; a passman.
  • See also

    * gentleman's C

    References

    * English heteronyms ----

    polls

    English

    Noun

    (head)
  • (politics, government) A place where votes are cast in elections.
  • On the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, American voters go to the polls for general elections.

    Synonyms

    * polling place

    Verb

    (head)
  • (poll)