From Middle English bole, from Old Norse bolr, akin to Danish bul and German Bohle (“plank”). See also bulwark (“defensive wall”).
Meanings
The trunk or stem of a tree.
Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean / Upon the dusky brushwood underneath / Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green, / New from its silken sheath. 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “A Dream of Fair Women”, in Poems, volume 1, page 188:
A fine powder filled the air and caressed the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below. 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
bg ствол (the trunk or stem of a tree) · pl pień (the trunk or stem of a tree) · no stamme (the trunk or stem of a tree) · ka ტანი (the trunk or stem of a tree) · sv bål (the trunk or stem of a tree) · bg стъбло (the trunk or stem of a tree) · cs peň (the trunk or stem of a tree) · ka ჯირკი (the trunk or stem of a tree) · pt tronco (the trunk or stem of a tree) · wa beur (the trunk or stem of a tree) · eo trunko (the trunk or stem of a tree) · id batang (the trunk or stem of a tree) · wa bodje (the trunk or stem of a tree) · sv stam (the trunk or stem of a tree) · fr fût (the trunk or stem of a tree) · ca fust (the trunk or stem of a tree) · fi runko (the trunk or stem of a tree) · wa buk (the trunk or stem of a tree) · ru ство́л (the trunk or stem of a tree) · ca tronc (the trunk or stem of a tree)
From Ancient Greek βῶλος (bôlos, “clod or lump of earth”): compare French bol. Doublet of bolus.
Meanings
(countable, uncountable) Any of several varieties of friable earthy clay, usually coloured red by iron oxide, and composed essentially of hydrous silicates of alumina, or more rarely of magnesia.
Good Iznik has strong colours well-contained within their outlines and a very clean, clear white. The red colour, made with Armenian bole (an earthy clay) should be thick and proud of the surface. 2018 April 14, “8 things to know about İznik pottery”, in Christie's:
(countable, uncountable) The shade of reddish brown which resembles this clay.
(countable, obsolete, uncountable) A bolus; a dose.
[…]or else[…]the churches were very incurious to swallow such a bole, if no pretension could have been reasonably made for their justification. 1649, Jeremy Taylor, “An Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy Against the Pretence of the Spirit”, in Charles Page Eden, editor, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., volume V, published 1849, page 294:
Take then good Barley newly thrashed and well purged from the Chaff, and put thereof eight Boles, that is about ſix English Quarters, in a Stone - trough 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC:
(Scotland) An aperture with a shutter in the wall of a house, to admit air or light.
"Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her daughter-in-law, “open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be the right Lord Geraldin[…]. 1816, Walter Scott, The Antiquary, Adam and Charles Black, published 1862, page 220: