Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A thole pin.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To bear; undergo; sustain; put up with; stand.
- To experience; feel; suffer.
- To tolerate; permit; allow.
- To admit of; afford.
- To give freely.
- To endure grief, pain, misfortune, etc.; suffer.
- To be patient or tolerant; bear (with); be indulgent.
- To wait; stay; remain.
- n. Patience; endurance; tolerance.
- n. A pin inserted in the gunwale of a boat, or in a similar position, to act as a fulcrum for the oar in rowing. The oar is sometimes secured to the thole by a loop of cordage; but more frequently there are two pins between which the oar plays, in which case the thole is properly the pin against which the oar presses when the stroke is made. It is common, however, to speak of the two together as the tholes. Also called
thole-pin . - n. The pin or handle of a scythe-snath.
- n. A cart-pin.
- n. In architecture: Same as tholus; sometimes, a vaulted niche, or recess in a temple, where votive offerings were suspended.
- n. The scutcheon or knot at the center of a timber vault.
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive To suffer.
- v. transitive, Northern England To endure, to tolerate, to put up with.
- n. a pin in the side of a boat which acts as a fulcrum for the oars
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A wooden or metal pin, set in the gunwale of a boat, to serve as a fulcrum for the oar in rowing.
- n. The pin, or handle, of a scythe snath.
- v. Obs. or Scot. To bear; to endure; to undergo.
- v. Prov. Eng. & Scot. To wait.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a holder attached to the gunwale of a boat that holds the oar in place and acts as a fulcrum for rowing
Etymologies
- From Middle English, from Old English þol ("thole, oar-pin"), from Proto-Germanic *þullaz, *þullō (“thole, beam”), from Proto-Indo-European *tūl-, *twel- (“sphere, bush”). Cognate with Dutch dol ("thole"), German Dolle ("oar-lock, thole"), Danish toll ("thole"). Extra-Germanic cognates include Albanian thel ("a big nail, a clapper"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English tholle, thole pin, from Old English thol. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So that, although we may with fome degree of propriety adopt the idea of thole hif - tarian«, who tells us, that the king was taller than the genera -”
“… this is good … i like the idea of thole starting the season in Triple-A, where he can work on catching big-league quality pitching, under the tutelage of Chris Coste … the question now is, what happens to Omir Santos … will he or Shawn Riggans end up being traded … and, if so, to whom and for what …”
“Finally. gaustad sh! thole, meaning the entire city of Buffalo, not your little neighborhood.”
“UN International Sh! thole of the year, 40 years running.”
“Shut your lying sh! thole and work with our president!”
“In 100 years, the entire territory of Jew-Free Palestine will be the same kind of s – thole that Gaza is today.”
“After the federal Tory cabinet minister swore at Charlottetown airport security personnel and said theyâd cause her to be âstuck in this s–thole,â an anonymous resident got revenge for the city by publicizing her outburst in a letter, forcing her to apologize.”
“Then away they rowed, so hard and fast, that well-nigh the half of the keel slipped away from the ship, and so hard they laid on to the oars that thole and gunwale brake.”
“Ho! some of you catch up chance spars, break up the benches, or snatch the oar-blade from the thole, and beat out the brains of these our foreign foes.”
“And round the thole-pins they fitted the oars, and in the ship they placed the mast and the well-made sails and the stores.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘thole’.
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phrontistery-t
from phrontistery.info
tabacosis, tabanid, tabaret, tabati?re, tabby, tabefaction, tabellary, tabellion, tabernacle, tabernacular, tabescent, tabific and 930 more...
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WWF WTF?
Ever play "Words With Friends" with someone and they throw down some strange, unlikely group of letters that makes even the most mild and squeaky clean tongued person say "whiskey tango foxtrot"? ...
oorie, sangar, merl, cwm, doum, weir, jura, invar, lawine, tapa, waw, shog and 376 more...
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Another 250 Spelling Words
Another range of words from the intermediate to the advanced speller's level.
cherimoya, parthenogenesis, sommelier, bupkis, kichel, voulge, indivisibility, retiarius, sewellel, vihuela, ossature, jalfrezi and 238 more...
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In The Name Of All That Is Good And H...
Here you will find pieholes rather than piety. If you seek that which is holy, you must find the list In The Name Of All That Is Good And Holy... by uselessness.
piehole, doughnut hole, cakehole, the rabbit hole, hole in one, Swiss cheese, potatohole, three-hole punch, portable hole, hellhole, cholent, cholera and 89 more...
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buzzwords
oddities of any kind
recuse, sipe, mullion, cairngorm, gormless, thole, drug, rutch, plonk, yips, gurry, reredos and 8 more...
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cotton
Cotton is a blended word with rich flavor. One meaning root is from the semitic root qtn that means to 'become thin or fine'; and the other meaning is from Welsh cytun or cytun that means to ' agr...
cotton, hosanna, Seneca, crab, hock, bow, bark, carousal, limber, rash, beguine, kennel and 26 more...
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Anglo-Saxon/Old English
Anglo-Saxon rootwords
mote, huru, byspel, elfshine, infaru, snotor, dern, upspring, meed, lof, queem, hof and 83 more...
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bilby's Words
pandemic, whirl, guffaw, ethereal, feisty, dunt, ephemeral, pule, flipergebet, prink, maunder, gammon and 1023 more...
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ADW2
nudnik, temper, intercalate, cleave, scowl, chapfallen, malapropos, disport, annals, paean, paradisiacal, whet and 362 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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Baron Luke's Collection
An assortment of words, which, when used, should inject some vibrancy into your day, hopefully expunging any ennui!
expunge, cogitate, elucidate, post-haste, rebarbative, recalcitrant, smite, absquatulate, forlorn, thole, nefarious, insubordination and 124 more...
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fitting words
a list of words from the indo european root ar- and variations : to fit together
ambry, rede, coarctate, anarthrous, artiodactyl, exordium, harmony, army, armoire, arm, armada, armadillo and 349 more...
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Ulysses
This is a list of the more difficult English words found in James Joyce's Ulysses. It will continually be updated as I read along. The list is in reverse chronological order, meaning that the last ...
equine, untonsured, corpuscle, prelate, parapet, dactyl, jejune, lancet, jalap, barbican, valise, dewsilky and 377 more...
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Old words that deserve revival
anywhen, batten, bedswerver, blashy, brightsome, bub, busk, canty, chuff, croodle, cumberworld, draggle and 42 more...
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T-words
tantony, tath, timmynoggy, thole, tortfeaser, twiss, tyg, trichechine, tanquam, tattogey, thebaine, thob and 36 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for thole.

yarb "...those Stalinist crimes imputed to you by your most ardent admirers and which the intelligently decent have NEVER been able to thole."
- Alasdair gray, 1982, Janine. Nov 26, 2011
glenhaven In Nova Scotia the wooden pins used as oarlocks in dories and mackerel flats are set into the tholes and are pronounced "tullpins". Feb 16, 2011