All right, this is just a show of hands question...

Before I ask, here is the story behind the question:

Tonight, my hubby and I went to some friends' house. We were looking for a parking spot on the street and we backed around a corner.

It is in an area that has just been rebuilt. The old tree-trunk telephone poles have not been replaced yet so they are smack dab in the street.

Well when we backed around the corner I saw a pole but my hubby didn't seem to have seen it. My automatic reaction was to urgently say "watch out for the bole"

Here is the question...

How many of you know that a tree trunk is a bole?
How many of you still use that word?

Never heard the word before....and never use it.

Unknown and unused -- until now. Thanks for bole, bel.

From the same root as bollix, phallus, and folly.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE51.html

I've always thought of the bole as being that part of the trunk that joins with the roots, but not the upper trunk. As soon as I can get my copy of Understanding Wood by Bruce Hoadley back from a friend who borrowed it, I can give you the definition therein.

I'd use trunk.

Bole: Not to be confused with boll as in the boll weevil of the American South.

But you can poll a tree:

Main Entry: 2poll
Date: 14th century
transitive senses
1 a : to cut off or cut short the hair or wool of : CROP, SHEAR b : to cut off or cut short (as wool)
2 a : to cut off or back the top of (as a tree); specifically : POLLARD b : to cut off or cut short the horns of (cattle)

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

My automatic reaction was to urgently say "watch out for the bole"

What a perfect example of the difficulties each of us word-nuts can suffer in [let us say] "interspousal communications".

And I'm shedding great big tears of frustration. If any of you had looked at that Viking word site I posted yesterday, you would know that "bole" is of Scandinavian origin and does mean tree trunk.

http://viking.no/e/england/e-viking_words_2.htm#C

It's set to the "C" words, scroll up to the "B" words

wwh:

I accessed your link. Here's what was there:

bole (n) Stem of a tree. Scan => ME bol, Ice bolr, bulr (the trunk of a tree), Swe bål, Dan bul.

Stem of tree? I never heard of a trunk being referred to as a stem...though later in the definition there's bulr (the trunk of a tree).

Bulr makes me think of burled oak, but I don't expect there's a connection...

Bole regards,
Woodsworth

Edit/Addendum: A little more on burls (as in burled oak):

Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English burle, from (assumed) Middle French bourle tuft of wool, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin burrula, diminutive of Late Latin burra shaggy cloth
Date: 15th century
1 : a knot or lump in thread or cloth
2 a : a hard woody often flattened hemispherical outgrowth on a tree b : veneer made from burls

Have I heard of the word? Do wood nymphs dance in the woods?
Do I ever use the word? Sometimes.

a) know the word

b) don't use it regularly, just if I'm trying to be formal or sound literate

and c) FWIW (which isn't much) when I first read your query, I thought you were going to say you had misheard, and what was really said was "Watch out for the pole" !

I'm with Wofahulicodoc, know but only use in literary attempts.

Way most of the men I know drive, I'd have got as far as 'Watch ou...' before we hit it. Making the question far less material than the bole/trunk/tree...

Do wood nymphs dance in the woods?

Yes, consuelo - but if I'm right in thinking of boles as the remains of a tree after it's been chopped down, you're not gonna get many wood nymphs in that wood

belM - It's a "yes" and an "occasionally" for me. I'd definitely have called your remains of a telegraph pole a bole.

bole=the bottom bit, including the roots in a live tree. And a bugger to dig up unless you've poured in some nasty toxic substances to kill off the roots first.

How many of you know that a tree trunk is a bole?
Vaguely and once upon a time.
How many of you still use that word?
Once upon a time, not in the last 20 years but will be using it first thing in the morning tomorrow. In our backyard is a problematic bole that is at present the bane of my husband's existence. It wouldn't budge. His latest failed attempt at its destruction is to drill holes in it and then filling up these holes with peanuts, hoping that our resident gazillion squirrels will furiously dig, burrow and render this bole into a pile of wood shavings while they try to take the peanuts out of the holes. Unfortunately, in this game, a Ph.D. holder has been outsmarted by the squirrel. They got the peanuts that they could from the holes without bothering those that they know they have to work at.

wot max sed:

Oui
Non

stales

> I never heard of a trunk being referred to as a stem

I had a tree surgeon come to check on the health of a huge tree (a Tuart FWIW - one of only two in the suburb, and probably the tallest at 35m/115ft+) that's growing on my boundary a year ago. He referred to the tree's main stem, secondary stems and, overall, its "architecture". Obviously there's a whole language in tree surgery!

stales

Yes

I used it yesterday, in fact, referring to a live oak trunk (bole). I wonder if the word is more common in the south?

Robert Payne

Hi Stales! I never heard of a Tuart, and that is some big tree! Any idea how old it is...and is that how big they usually get? Would love to know more!

Hiya Angel

Everything you ever wanted to know about Tuarts....

http://www.calm.wa.gov.au/plants_animals/tree_tuart.html

Ya gotta laugh - the example pictured was too big to fit into the "official" photo at the site.

One of Perth's suburbs is called Tuart Hill, but I don't think there's any there anymore. Long forgotten firewood by now.

Ours is just a pup, prolly about 70 years old. The cascading of gumnuts onto our tin roof is quaint - but can be startling to the unititiated.

stales

Know the word but always used in this context : a hard woody often flattened hemispherical outgrowth on a tree

O! O! did your husband actually hear the "buh" sound for bole or did it sound like the "puh" sound of pole to him?
If he remarked on *B*ole you must have great diction and/or he has superior hearing!

our resident gazillion squirrels will furiously dig, burrow and render this bole into a pile of wood shavings

Tell yur PhD (Peanut heaving Doctor) to try termites!

Tell yur PhD (Peanut heaving Doctor) to try termites!

Bite your naughty tongue, Geoff!

Back to the word "bole", isn't the term "a boled tree" used in the nurseries for a young sapling that is dug out and whose roots with the soil and all is wrapped in burlap ready for transport to garden centers?

And then there are polled trees, aren't there? Ones that have the upper branches cut off kind of flat?

I'm persistent here, I know--but I wonder whether you could poll a bole?

could (you) poll a bole?

Arrrrgggghhhh!!!!

...and if you had a penny a pitch (and a loverly bunch of coconuts), could you roll a poll a bole?