bole

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“
He then dressed and seated himself upon a tree-bole, and once more became buried in his gloomy reflections It was not of his love that next he thought, but of his wretched predicament.

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Definitions (19)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun The trunk of a tree.
  2. noun Any of various soft fine clays, especially a reddish-brown variety used as a pigment.
  3. noun A moderate reddish brown.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (9)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (50)

  • Its bole, as thick around as a small cottage, stood straight as a sword, cutting up from the tangle of twisted trees around it. —  Witch Gate.htm
  • A woman in a water-stained doeskin cloak stood beside one buttress of the great bole, her eyes shut, her fingertips pressed to her throat. —  The Many-Coloured Land -- Julian May
  • It was a fresh bole, and at least four feet square. —  011 - Brand of the Werewolf
  • The bole was at least eighty feet, only a little less smooth than glass. —  102 - Mystery Island
  • She tried to ease back, but the bole was behind her. —  Stephanie Laurens - The Ideal Bride
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Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English, from Old Norse bolr; see bhel-2 in Indo-European roots.
  2. Middle English, from Medieval Latin bōlus; see bolus.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. Early modern English also boal, boll; from Middle English bole, from Icelandic bolr, bulr, trunk of a tree, = Old Swedish bol, bul, Swedish bål, a trunk, body, = Danish bul, trunk, stump, log, = Middle High German bole, German bohle, a thick plank; prob. akin, through the notion of roundness, to boll, bowl, ball, etc. Bole is the first element of bulwark and of its perversion boulevard, q. v.
  2. from Middle English bol (in bol armoniak, Armenian bole), from Old French bol, French bol = Provencal Spanish bol = Portuguese Italian bolo, from Latin bōlus, clay, a lump, choice bit, nice morsel, from Greek βῶλος, a clod or lump of earth.
  3. Also spelled boal; of uncertain origin.
 

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/boʊl/
by American Heritage

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