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Poll   Listen
noun
Poll  n.  
1.
The head; the back part of the head. "All flaxen was his poll."
2.
A number or aggregate of heads; a list or register of heads or individuals. "We are the greater poll, and in true fear They gave us our demands." "The muster file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll."
3.
Specifically, the register of the names of electors who may vote in an election.
4.
The casting or recording of the votes of registered electors; as, the close of the poll. "All soldiers quartered in place are to remove... and not to return till one day after the poll is ended."
5.
pl. The place where the votes are cast or recorded; as, to go to the polls.
6.
The broad end of a hammer; the but of an ax.
7.
(Zool.) The European chub. See Pollard, 3 (a).
Poll book, a register of persons entitled to vote at an election.
Poll evil (Far.), an inflammatory swelling or abscess on a horse's head, confined beneath the great ligament of the neck.
Poll pick (Mining), a pole having a heavy spike on the end, forming a kind of crowbar.
Poll tax, a tax levied by the head, or poll; a capitation tax.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Poll" Quotes from Famous Books



... consternation in the town was great. It was evident that the next step would be to close the schools to Dissenters. Public meetings were held, and at the annual election of trustees, Mr. Lockwood was at the bottom of the poll. At the next meeting of the board, after the election, my father carried a resolution which rescinded Mr. Lockwood's. The rector's defeat was followed by a series of newspaper letters in his defence from the Rev. Edward Swann, mathematical ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... Now you must know that his father knows nothing about his offering himself; and this was printed in the corner of the newspaper that his sister might cut it out before his father saw it! I understand that he has the majority on the Poll at present & that he made a speech of ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... to pity by Polly's downcast face. "You let your old book go till fall, and then start again, but only read half an hour a day. That's all your brains can take in, and I'll try to be on hand to explain it to you. How does that suit, Poll?" ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... departments will comment in detail, are appropriate methods of strengthening these basic rights which have our full support. The right to vote, for example, should no longer be denied through such arbitrary devices on a local level, sometimes abused, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. As we approach the 100th anniversary, next January, of the Emancipation Proclamation, let the acts of every branch of the Government—and every citizen—portray that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... proud as a peacock, and would trample upon us all, and gore us too, like one of the wild bulls of Bowland, if we would let him have his way. But I would treat him as I would the bull aforesaid, a wild boar, or any other savage and intractable beast, hunt him down, and poll his horns, or pluck ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... more unexpected. If a poll had been taken of the judgment of the population twenty-four hours before, a great majority would have been found believing that there was no escape for the prisoner, who was accused of murdering a wealthy timber merchant. The minority would have based their belief ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... locally for the man who in the excitement caused by the declaration of the poll at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various

... me in earnest in wagering poll for poll! A drinking joke and a gibe and a juggler's feat, that is all, To make the time go quickly—for I am the drinker's friend, The kindest of all Shape-Changers from here to the world's end, The best of all tipsy companions. And now I bring you a gift: I will lay it there on the ground for ...
— The Green Helmet and Other Poems • William Butler Yeats

... contretemps. Sarah and her sister did her hair up too loose, and, being a glorious mass, it threatened all to come down and, meantime, a hair-pin quietly but persistently bored her cream-white poll. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... that the Horizontals and the Perpendiculars had made so many spurious and mystified ballots, in order to propitiate the Tangents, and to cheat each other, that this young blackguard actually stood at the head of the poll!—a political phenomenon, as I subsequently discovered, however, by no means of rare occurrence in the Leaplow history of the periodical selection ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... monarchy such as Italy, is a rough, uncertain affair. "The House of Savoy rules by executing the will of the Italian people." Good! But how is that popular will to be determined? Not, surely, by taking a poll of the five hundred-odd Deputies of the Italian Parliament elected two years before the world was upset by the Teuton desire to rule. Those Deputies were chosen, as we Americans know only too well how, by mean intrigues ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... piazza, where, by its call, it soon attracted the passing flocks of its relatives. Numerous parties frequently alighted on the trees immediately above, keeping up a constant conversation with the prisoner. One of these was wounded and captured. Poll evinced the greatest pleasure on meeting with this new companion. She crept close up to it, chattering in a low tone of voice, as if sympathising in its misfortune, scratching its head and neck with her bill—at night, both nestling as closely as possible to each other, sometimes Poll's ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... patched with gold ducats, and ride a good nag shod with silver shoes. I pray that your honour may not be able to count the hairs of your head, and that as many blessings may be showered upon your shoulders as you have lost hairs from your poll. I pray that all the ministering angels of heaven may have nothing else to do but sweep all earthly cares out of your honour's path. I pray that the golden-spurred csizmas of your felicity may never be bespattered by the puddles of tribulation. I pray that the field-flask ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... Kitty, first with one eye and then with the other, evidently preparing to make a remark, but awkward with a stranger. "That 's a beautiful part y 've got there," Kitty said, buoyant with the certainty that she was on safe ground this time; "and tahks like a book, I 'll be bound. Poll! Poll! Poor Poll!" ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... and mamma teach us at home. We have beautiful redbirds, bluebirds, and woodpeckers here, and a pair of mocking-birds have built their nest in a rose-bush near our window. We have two pet chickens, named Poll and Nelly, that have never been with a hen since they were hatched. When I call, "Cluck! cluck!" they come running to me, but they are afraid of a hen. Every night they cry to be ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... one district in Scotland, as a result of the recent local veto poll, total exactly half the number of quires of "returns" of last week's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various

... trouble against our hero. Mr. Slide was proposed by Mr. Vellum, and seconded by Mr. Vellum's clerk,—though, as it afterwards appeared, Mr. Vellum's clerk was not in truth an elector,—and went to the poll like a man. He received three votes, and at twelve o'clock withdrew. This in itself could hardly have afforded compensation for the expense which Mr. Slide or his backers must have encountered;—but ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... made the navigation an anxious task for Tom. He was ably assisted by Mr. Milman. It was a most unpleasant morning, and, keeping quietly down in my berth, I think I was better off than some of those on deck. After passing Ninepin and Saddle Islands, and the three island-sisters, Poll, Bet, and Sue, we made Cocoa-nut Island, one of the few high islands we have seen to-day. During the afternoon the navigation continued to be intricate, but shortly after sunset we made York Islands, under the lee of the larger of which we ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... like ours oftentimes upon their Mexican captives; but, beyond a doubt, Barney's was the first red poll that had ever been scratched in the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... inn-yards, and every vehicle of any description which could be pressed into the service were in motion; if the horses and post-boys were not to be paid for by the candidates, the voters themselves were certainly very liberal in their mode of bringing themselves to the poll. The election district of the city of Barchester extended for some miles on each side of the city, so that the omnibuses and flys had enough to do. Beer was to be had at the public-houses, almost without question, by ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... children? Ah, where were they not? Lizzie was in Australia; Mary was in Buenos Ayres; Poll was in New York; Joe had died in India—and so they called them up, the living and the dead, soldier and sailor, and colonist's wife, for the traveller's sake who sat in ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... female whom your shadow touches Grudge you the glad, but deferential, eye; Should any cripple fail to hold his crutches At the salute as you go marching by; Draw, in the KAISER's name—'tis rank high treason; Stun them with sabre-strokes upon the poll; Then dump them (giving no pedantic reason) Down cellars with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various

... her—"how clumsy you are! You don't understand one bit how to manage parrots. I had a parrot of my own at my aunt's in Australia, and I know their ways and all about them. Just let me try him." She held out her soft white hand toward the sulky bird with a fearless, caressing gesture. "Pretty Poll, pretty Poll!" she said, in English, in the conventional tone of address to their kind. "Did the naughty man go and frighten her then? Was she afraid of his hand? Did Polly want a ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... last did as much for George Vavasor as he had done for the hero of the Hamlets. At the close of the poll Vavasor's name stood at the head by a considerable majority, and Scruby comforted him by saying that Travers certainly wouldn't stand the expense of a petition, as the seat was to be held ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... down the ages, singing paeans to those who fail, chants to Death—strong deliverer—and giving courage to a fear-stricken world; Thoreau, declining to pay the fee of five dollars for his Harvard diploma "because it wasn't worth the price," later refusing to pay poll-tax and sent to jail, thus missing, possibly, the chance of finding that specimen of Victoria regia on Concord River—Thoreau, most virile of all the thinkers of his day, inspiring Emerson, the one man America could illest spare; Spinoza, the intellectual ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... now admitted to England free of duty. Tea pays a duty of about L4,000,000 sterling a year. This is called a duty for revenue, not for protection. Tea is an article of universal consumption; the tax on it is open to the objections against a poll tax or hearth tax, viz. that by it many a poor old woman is taxed as heavily as far richer people; indeed, owing to the poor consuming the lower-priced teas, they are by the present duty taxed at a higher rate than those who can afford ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke

... woman's suffrage is that women themselves, in the mass, have taken an equally temperate interest in the matter when they have not been actually hostile to the movement. It may indeed be said, even at the present time, that whenever an impartial poll is taken of a large miscellaneous group of women, only a minority are found to be in favour of woman's suffrage.[56] No significant event has occurred to stimulate general interest in the matter, and no supremely eloquent or influential voice has artificially stirred it. There has ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... The poll-tax, which is levied on all males over twenty-one years of age, is rigorously collected from the Chinamen, while no special effort is made to collect it from the whites. In crossing the ferry to Oakland, they are often pounced upon by the collector,—in many ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... the admiral to Charles; "what a figure-head, to be sure! Poll at Swansea would have made just about four of her, but she wasn't so ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... on your inimy. As for scalping, or even skinning a savage, I look upon them pretty much the same as cutting off the ears of wolves for the bounty, or stripping a bear of its hide. And then you're out significantly, as to taking the poll of a red-skin in hand, seeing that the very colony has offered a bounty for the job; all the same as it pays for ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... does speak English! Who knows but he understood all I said, and what the parrot said too. Poll, you go into your cage! 'At your service, madam!' And did you hear it, Lucy? No errand-boy ever spoke in the loikes o' that before! I'd think h'd been brought up among the quality. It maybe he's a Fairy Shoemaker, spaking the queen's court-language, ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth

... is this? what have we here! we must not pass it by; A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky: Long is it as a Barber's Poll, or Mast of little Boat, Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... our honourable friend, and to contests like those from which he comes triumphant, that we are mainly indebted for that ready interest in politics, that fresh enthusiasm in the discharge of the duties of citizenship, that ardent desire to rush to the poll, at present so manifest throughout England. When the contest lies (as it sometimes does) between two such men as our honourable friend, it stimulates the finest emotions of our nature, and awakens the highest admiration of which our heads ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... that they were electors whom Murphy and Dick in their zeal for their party were going over to greet with hearty welcomes and bring up to the poll the next day. By no means. They were the friends of the opposite party, and it was with the design of retarding their movements that this night's excursion was undertaken. These electors were a batch of plain citizens from Dublin, whom the Scatterbrain interest had induced to leave the peace ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... "taking the poll" as it was called, was conducted in the court chambers, or, in warm weather, in the courthouse yard, with the sheriff presiding at a long table. On either side of the sheriff were justices of the court, and at the ends of the table were the ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... left the brown hair for Ashimullah, for he loves it, and I have brought my lord the colors that my lord loves." And with this she laid the three wigs of black hair, of golden, and of ruddy at the Sultan's feet, and stood herself before him with her shaven poll. ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... Newgate steps, and scratch'd her poll, Her eyes suffus'd with tears, and bung'd with gin; The Session's sentence wrung her to the soul, Nor could she lounge the gag to shule a win; The knowing bench had tipp'd her buzer queer, [8] For Dick had beat ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... call me Pig-Woman for?" she grumbled, but still half mollified. "What if I did waste my youth and prime in cooking of porkers in a booth; I am no cutpurse. I, I never shoved the tumbler for tail-drawing or poll-snatching on a levee-day.[L] But I will draw for you, and welcome my guests ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... arrive, and still To suit the note the glades have struck, Moat sweetly shall Neaera swill Her poll ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various

... brooding, the tears his thoughts reveal; Beset with a thousand fancies, and crazed with honest care, Sensitive to a footfall lest some foe were lurking there, When Rod'rick, bearing by the locks the Count's dissevered poll, Tracking the floor with recent gore, advanced along the hall. He touched his father's shoulder and roused him from his dream, And proudly flaunting his revenge he thus addresses him: "Behold the evil tares, sir, that ye may taste the wheat; Open thine eyes, my father, and lift ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... public evidently had more faith in the "crackpot" scientists who were spending millions of the public's dollars at the White Sands Proving Grounds, in the "publicity-mad" military pilots, and the "tired, old" airline pilots, because in a nationwide poll it was found that only 6 per cent of the country's 150,697,361 people agreed with the colonel and said, "There aren't ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... four per cent. upon their departure from Europe. The national and foreign commodities equally pay six per cent. on their arrival in the islands; 18 livres (15s) are required for every fresh Negro brought in, and a poll-tax of 4 livres 10 sols (3s. 9d.). Some heavy duties are laid upon stamp paper; an impost of 9 livres (7s. 6d.) for each thousand foot square of ground, and the tenth of the price of every habitation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... eclipse of the gayety of John Bull, with facile pencil and brilliant tongue, attracted a cultured assemblage to the Columbia Theatre. Furniss, a plump lump of a man, all curves from pumps to poll, in gesture and in the breezy flourish of his sentences, genially cynical like Voltaire, cuts an engaging figure in his black coat that he wears with the inborn grace of a well-dined Londoner, a bon vivant, whose worldly shaft tickles and never bites, for he is ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... Poll, hopping up and down from her perch to the floor of the cage, chattering continually between her fits of coughing, "I'm sick! I'm sick! O, what a cold!" and then, changing her tone, ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie

... conch, thou bawler!" cried the Alderman, giving the younker a rap on his naked poll, in passing, with the end of his cane, that might have disturbed the harmony of one less bent on clamor. "A thousand windy trumpeters would be silence itself, compared to such a pair of lungs! How now ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... another act was passed taxing imported slaves, because it had "been found very easy to the subjects of this colony, and no ways burthensome to the traders in slaves." The additional reason for continuing the law was, "that a competent revenue" might be raised "for preventing or lessening a poll-tax."[167] And in 1738, this law being "found, by experience, to be an easy expedient for raising a revenue towards the lessening a pooll-tax, always grievous to the people of this colony, and is in no way burthensom to the traders ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... never did think to hear 'ee talk so voolish—a sensible body like ye did always use to seem! Dear heart alive! Gold-fish! And a poll parrot! Well, Mary, I did think as a body o' your years could content herself wi' live things as had a bit more ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... you must mind that an old shipmate o' mine, Ben Leader, had a wife named Poll, a pretty sort of craft in her way—neat in her rigging, swelling-bows, taking sort of figure-head, and devilish well rounded in the counter; altogether, she was a very fancy girl, and all the men were after ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... two candidates a dozen papers discover with amazement this astounding coincidence in the figures: that the decrease in, say, the Liberal vote subtracted from the increase in the Conservative vote is exactly equal to the increase in the poll. If there should happen to be three candidates for a seat, the coincidences discovered are yet more numerous and astonishing. Last Christmas a paper let itself go still further, and dived into the economics of the plum pudding. A plum pudding contains raisins, flour, ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... poll!" shouted Mr. Brithwood. "This is a family borough. There has not been a poll here these fifty years. Sir Ralph, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... his funny books. I wish you could have seen how those dear girls enjoyed it, and laughed till they cried over the dismay of the boys, when they knocked at a door in Kingsgate Street, and asked if Mrs. Gamp lived there. It was actually a barber's shop, and a little man, very like Poll Sweedlepipes, told them 'Mrs. Britton was the nuss as lived there now.' It upset those rascals to come so near the truth, and they ran away because they couldn't ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... of the Sixth Ward, the friends of the constitution and the liberties of the citizen will meet at this place (Masonic Hall), to-morrow (Wednesday), at half-past seven o'clock A.M., and repair to the Sixth Ward poll, for the purpose of keeping it open to ALL VOTERS until such time as the official authorities may 'procure a sufficient number of special constables to ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... horseflesh he was almost equal to a farrier, in stable learning he surpassed his own head groom, and in gluttony not a pig on his estate was a match for him. He had no seat in Parliament himself, but he was extremely patriotic, and usually drove his voters up to the poll with his own hands. He was warmly attached to church and state, and never appointed to the living in his gift any but a three-bottle man and a first-rate fox-hunter. He mistrusted the honesty of all poor people who could read and write, and had a secret jealousy ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... —— Tuck, his lordship's domestic chaplain, who had also grown as sleek as the Abbot of Jorvaulx, who was as prim as a lady in his dress, wore bergamot in his handkerchief, and had his poll shaved and his beard curled every day. And so sanctified was his Reverence grown, that he thought it was a shame to kill the pretty deer, (though he ate of them still hugely, both in pasties and with French beans and currant-jelly,) ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Urb, blowed if this ain't our Poll parrot what we lost. Thank you very much, lidy, for bringin' 'im ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... he found he was getting angry, and that the refractory hair that covered his poll began to feel hot. It would not do to betray his feelings, so he ended his sally with a huge laugh that had about as much music and heartiness in it as the caw of a crow. Buffum joined him with his wheezy chuckle, but having sense enough to see that Jim had really been pained, he ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... doubtful cleanness. He had enormous eyelashes, a large moustache, and a thick beard. Suddenly, I had a kind of vision. I know not why; the vision of a basin filled with noisome water, the water which should have been applied to that poll. I ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... the run of 'em," answered the woman, with more indifference than she felt. "Goin' and comin' all the while. Maybe it was Poll Davis." ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... good. But what have I done? I have put two and two together, just as the parish will be doing tomorrow, and the whole of Tweeddale in two weeks, and the black brothers - well, I won't put a date on that; it will be a dark and stormy morning! Your secret, in other words, is poor Poll's. And I want to ask of you as a friend whether you like the prospect? There are two horns to your dilemma, and I must say for myself I should look mighty ruefully on either. Do you see yourself explaining to the four Black Brothers? or do you see yourself ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... He dropped the banana he had been munching, and ran to the knee of a grave dark Arab in flowing robes, sitting like a Biblical figure, incongruously, on a yellow tin trunk corded with a rope of twisted rattan. The father, unmoved, put out his hand to pat the little shaven poll protectingly. ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... billeting and supplying of the troops in America. And for raising some part of the general maintenance fund ministers could think of no tax more equitable, or easier to be levied and collected, than a stamp tax. Some such tax, stamp tax or poll tax, had often been recommended by colonial governors, as a means of bringing the colonies "to a sense of their duty to the King, to awaken them to take care of their lives and their fortunes." A crown officer in North Carolina, Mr. M'Culloh, was good enough to assure Mr. Charles Jenkinson, ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... forces marshalled on each side were about equal. Passions ran high. Poetasters on both sides did their part.[210] It speedily became evident that the margin of the successful candidate would be narrow. This prevision proved to be correct. When the poll was declared on December 6, 1579, Luis de Leon's total of votes amounted to 285, giving him a majority of thirty-six over his opponent.[211] Since he stood against Grajal, and was defeated, at the ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... September I go out in the woods, and am attracted by a faint piping and lisping in the tops of the Oaks and Chestnuts. Tiny figures dart to and fro so rapidly that it pains the eye to follow them, and I discover that the Black-Poll Warbler is paying me a return visit. Presently I likewise perceive a troop of Redstarts, or Green-Backed Warblers, or Golden and Ruby-Crowned Wrens, flashing through the Chestnut-branches, or hanging like jewels on the Cedar-sprays. A week of two later, and my darlings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... wound."—Joh. Dict., w. Bolt. "For what else is a red-hot iron than fire? and what else is a burning coal than red-hot wood?"—Newton or Joh. cor. "Poll-evil is a large swelling, inflammation, or imposthume, in the horse's poll, or nape of the neck, just between the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... said Poll, with whom Adam was no favorite: "they doesn't want you. You stay where you be now. I hates to see anybody ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... of the Hoopoes to ask him what reward he would like to receive for this service, and the answer was promptly made that a crown of pure gold on the head would be acceptable. The Jewish monarch smiled grimly as he granted the request, whereupon immediately each bird found his poll decorated with a tuft of pure golden feathers, and mightily pleased with their new magnificence were the conceited hoopoes. But alas! the news was quickly spread abroad that there were to be seen strange birds with plumes of real gold, and the eternal lust of gain ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... bald poll began to shine with minute beads of perspiration. He looked over the bib of his voluminous apron like a bewhiskered gnome very busy at some mysterious task. Louise noticed that his movements about the kitchen were ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... relieved, and remarked that the barometer indicated a big storm from the northeast. That night, in front of the big open fire, we talked of the fur trade. Among other books and papers he showed me was a copy of the Company's Deed Poll; not published a century ago, but printed at the time of which I am writing, and thus ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... Wales. In order whereunto, we first say that the assessment of London is about an eleventh part of the whole territory, and, therefore, that the people of the whole may well be eleven times that of London, viz., about 7,369,000 souls; with which account that of the poll-money, hearth-money, and the bishop's late numbering of the communicants, do pretty well agree; wherefore, although the said number of 7,369,000 be not (as it cannot be) a demonstrated truth, yet it will serve for a good supposition, ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty

... Herr Schliefer?' Jill would say, in a sort of fury. 'I like him a hundred times better than I do that mincing little poll-parrot of a Madame Blanchard: she is odious, and I hate her, and I hate Fraeulein too. It is not the lessons I mind; one has to learn lessons all one's life; it is being shut up like a bird in a cage when one's wings are ready for flight. I should ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... ready for our departure from our first halting-place. Early in the morning, having carefully laden our two vessels, we embarked. John, Ellen, Maria, and Domingos went in the larger one, accompanied by Nimble and Poll, with Naro and two of his followers; while Isoro, Arthur, and I embarked in the smaller, with two of the other men. True, of course, went with us, his usual post being the bow, where he stood with his fore-feet on the gunwale, as if it were his especial duty to keep a look-out ahead. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... partly from a not unnatural interest in the result, partly from a half-unconscious clinging to the chance of catching another glimpse of Barbara, he took his bag to the hotel, determined to stay for the announcement of the poll. Strolling out into the High Street he began observing the humours of the day. The bloom of political belief had long been brushed off the wings of one who had so flown the world's winds. He had seen too ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... mainyard arm, the craft a-scuddin' by all taught and under storms'ils for the harbour; not a blessed star a-twinklin' out aloft—aloft, your honour, in the little cherubs' native country—and the spray is flying like the white foam from the Jolly's lips when Poll of Portsea took ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... dissolved by Sir Archibald Campbell, in the hope that he might be able to get an assembly more amenable to his wishes, and, at the general election which followed, Wilmot was again elected, at the head of the poll. At that time he had barely completed his twenty-fifth year. It was a great triumph for Wilmot and the friends of Reform, for all the influence of the friends of the governor and the Family ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... voices of women and children. Sure no human creature that's got a woman and child in his company would be such a cruel brute as you make out this desert Ethiopian to be? Sailors' stories, to gratify the melodramatic ears of Moll and Poll and Sue! Bah! if there be an encampment, let's go straight into it, and demand hospitality of them. Sure they must be Arabs; and sure you've heard enough of ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... of the wearer, who either ties the piece of linen, blue or white, under the arms and across the breasts, or fastens it rather fantastically on one shoulder, leaving one breast naked. The Kanamboo women have small plaits of hair hanging down all round the head, quite to the poll of the neck, with a roll of leather, or string of little brass beads in front, hanging down from the centre on each side of the face, which has by no means an unbecoming appearance; they have sometimes strings of silver ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... 'Rangers,' and native police force. Peace of Sarawak kept by the people. Cheap government. Absolute Monarchy. Nominated Councils. The 'Civil Service,' 'Residents.' Law, custom, equity and common sense. Slavery abolished. Sources of revenue—'Opium Farm' monopoly, poll tax, customs, excise, fines and fees. Revenue and expenditure. Early financial straits. Sarawak offered to England, France and Holland. The Borneo Company (Ltd.). Public debt. Advantages of Chinese immigration 'Without the Chinese we can do nothing.' Java an exception. Chinese are good traders, ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... consecrate by fresh acts of kindness the happy moment when God showered his mercies on him by the birth of a dauphin, and at the same time to give to the inhabitants of his good city of Paris some special mark of his beneficence, granted an exemption from the poll-tax to all the burgesses, traders, and artisans who were not in such circumstances as made ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... the garrulous woman and seized her throat with his left hand, while he threatened her with a clenched fist and growled like a wild beast. "Another word of that, Poll, and I'll knock the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... and industry, the very property on which they are taxed. But this is not all; the alien, by going through the forms of naturalization, the minor on coming of age, obtain the right of voting; and so long as they continue to pay a mere poll-tax of a dollar and a half, they may continue to exercise it, though so ignorant as not to be able to sign their names, or read the very votes they put into the ballot-boxes. Even drunkards, felons, idiots, and lunatics, if men, may still enjoy that right of voting to which ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Ill and Lowspireted I Donte think your Aunt wood Git up all Day if My Sister Wasnot to Persage her We all Think hir lif is two monopolous. you Wish to know Who Was Liveing With your Aunt. that is My Sister and Willian—and Cariline—as Cock and Old Poll Pepper is Come to Stay With her a Littel Wile and I hoped [hopped] for Your Aunt, and Harry has Worked for your Aunt all the Summer. Your Aunt and Harry Whent to the Wells Races and Spent a very Pleasant Day your Aunt has Lost Old Fanney Sow She Died about a Week a Go Harry he ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... arithmetic, analysis, algebra, geometry, analytical geometry, fluxions[obs3]; differential calculus, integral calculus, infinitesimal calculus; calculus of differences. [Statistics] dead reckoning, muster, poll, census, capitation, roll call, recapitulation; account &c. (list) 86. [Operations] notation, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, rule of three, practice, equations, extraction of roots, reduction, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... heap; she had been peeping under it all the while she was in the back of the wagon. There lay a human being. Such an object; short and squat, dressed in a queer blue blouse with flowing sleeves, wide trousers and queer wooden shoes. He had small, black eyes, a shaven poll, from which depended a long thin queue. His countenance was battered and bruised, his clothes torn ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... and to my cosen Anthony Joyce's, and there took leave of my aunt James, and both cosens, their wives, who are this day going down to my father's by coach. I did give my aunt 20s., to carry as a token to my mother, and 10s. to Poll. [His sister Paulina.] With the Duke; and saw him with great pleasure play with his little girle, like an ordinary private ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... districts was to elicit the co-operation of the local chiefs and headmen, and, when the people had begun to appreciate the benefits of peace, including the opening of the rivers to Malay and Chinese traders, to impose a small poll-tax to defray the expenses of administration. The area of control was then gradually extended farther into the interior by securing the voluntary adhesion of communities and tribes settled in the tributaries and higher waters of each river. This policy, steadily pursued ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... ecclesiastical or lay. I will but mention one corroboration of a barbarity, which at first hearing it is difficult to credit. When the Spanish ambassador, then, was on his way to Timour, and had got as far as the north of Persia, he there actually saw a specimen of that sort of poll-tax, which I just now mentioned. It was a structure consisting of four towers, composed of human skulls, a layer of mud and of skulls being placed alternately; and he tells us that upwards of 60,000 men were massacred to afford materials for this building. Indeed it seems a demonstration of revenge ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... well," said she. The bird turned to her and then returned to me. I became quite interested in it. "Pretty Poll, pretty bird; would you ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... too delighted at hearing of your arrival. Give my love to Clive—a remarkable fine boy, Clive—good morning:" and the Baronet was gone, and his bald head might presently be seen alongside of Mr. Quilter's confidential grey poll, both of their faces ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the latter may be seen a tattooed anchor. By its side, but not so openly exhibited, is the figure of a damsel done in dark blue—no doubt a souvenir, if not the exact similitude, of a sweetheart—some Poll of past time, or perhaps ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... brought against Wykeham, who was deprived of his temporalities and banished from the court. In 1377 a new Parliament, elected under Lancaster's influence, reversed all the proceedings of the Good Parliament, and showed how little sympathy the baronial party had with the people by imposing a poll tax of 4d. a head on all except beggars, thus making the payment of a labourer and a duke equal. The bishops, unable to strike at Lancaster, struck at Wycliffe, as his creature. Wycliffe was summoned to ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... of the Scotch army across the border. But its payment and withdrawal could no longer be delayed. The death of Strafford was immediately followed by the conclusion of a pacification between the two countries; and the sum required for the disbanding of both armies was provided by a poll-tax. Meanwhile the Houses hastened to complete their task of reform. The civil and judicial jurisdiction of the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission, the irregular jurisdictions of the Council of the North, the Duchy of Lancaster, the County of Chester, were summarily abolished with ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... Popularity, and Mr. Lambert Meredith—a name quite unknown to your Lordship, but of some consequence in this Colony through a fortunate Marriage with a descendant of one of the original Patentees—at the last Election barely succeeded in carrying the Poll, and is represented to be a Man of much impracticality, hot-tempered, a stickler over trivial points, at odds with his Neighbours, and not even Master of his own Household. To such Men, my Lord, has fallen the Contest, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... GILT-POLL. The Sparus aurata, a fish of the European and American seas, with a golden mark between ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... to North Carolina must prepare to pay a poll tax. Poll tax is required from all white men, master or servant, from 16 years of age and on; all Negroes and Negresses pay poll tax from their twelfth year. Whoever marries a Negro, or Indian, a mixed blood—his children are liable to the fourth degree from the twelfth year ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... THE EXCHEQUER evidently regarded it as an insincere caress, whereas it was a perfectly honest expression of hostility. This attack was all the more unjust and undeserved since the bear was a most hardworking and underpaid member of the community. When a politician reached the top of the poll he got L400 a year. When a bear did the same he only got ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... will cry; and if you say, "Poor Poll, what is the matter?" she says, "So bad! so bad! Got a bad cold!" After crying some time, she grows more quiet, makes a noise like drawing a long breath, and says, "Better now," and then ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot

... went back to hunt Catocalae. It was a long and a happy search. It led them into new, unexplored nooks of the woods, past a red-poll nest, and where goldfinches prospected for thistledown for the cradles they would line a little later. It led them into real forest, where deep, dark pools lay, where the hermit thrush and the wood robin extracted ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... rarity in this city, even Shibli Bagarag of Shiraz! Know me nephew of the renowned Baba Mustapha, chief barber to the Court of Persia. Languishest thou not for my art? Lo! with three sweeps I'll give thee a clean poll, all save the Identical! and I can discern and save it; fear me not, nor distrust my skill and the cunning ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... imposed upon the lands, but all the men of the country are subject to a poll-tax in proportion to their substance. When any failure of crops makes necessaries dear, the king opens his store-houses to the people, and soils all sorts of necessaries at much cheaper rates than they can be had in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... poll of their precinct or see that it is taken; and that means the putting down in a book the name of each voter, his past political allegiance, his present political inclinations, the probable ballot he ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... true that, if you made a poll of newspaper editors, you might find a great many who think that war is evil. But if you were to take a census among ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... that merely to cling to existence is not an act in itself either righteous or courageous. If we owe obligations to individuals we should pay them to the last cent. If we owe obligations to society, we should pay those, too,—just as we pay our poll tax. But life is a straight business proposition—pay in some form for what you get out of it. There are no individuals in my life, as I said. And what do I owe society? Society does not like what I offer—the best of me—and will not give ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... as I've got eight votes instead of one," said Joanna, "and don't have the trouble of going to the poll, neither. Not one of my men would dare vote but as I told him, so reckon I do better than ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... On April 22, 1841, he married Elizabeth Mary, daughter of Mr. C.L. Cumming Bruce. At the general election in July of the same year he stood for the borough of Southampton, and was returned at the head of the poll. His political views at this time were very much those which have since been called 'Liberal Conservative.' Speaking at a great banquet at ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... but in this I am wiser than you, that I have no need to ask what thy name is. Thy name is Skapti Thorod's son, but before thou calledst thyself 'Bristlepoll,' after thou hadst slain Kettle of Elda; then thou shavedst thy poll, and puttedst pitch on thy head, and then thou hiredst thralls to cut up a sod of turf, and thou creptest underneath it to spend the night. After that thou wentest to Thorolf Lopt's son of Eyrar, and he took thee on board, and bore thee out ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... attentions always acceptable to a pretty vain girl of her class. Both would officiously help her to catch and bridle her horse, carry her pail, or assist her in the hay-field. And this was as often done to hear the smart answers that pretty Poll would return to their gallant speeches, for the girl possessed no small share of wit, and her natural talents were in no way inferior ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... under way for town," he wanted to know. "Is the old party croaked yet? Miss Manion has had a fierce time and says she won't stay near this house another minute. I don't like this place myself either. Do you know I just got kicked by a poll parrot? Let's get away ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... it, and show the marks of it for months, as the day we had our heads cropped. By evening there was hardly one poll in the Seventh tenable by anybody's grip. Most sat in the shade and were shorn by a barber. A few were honored with a clip by the artist hand of the petit caporal of our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... Chiny. That idee blew up an' thin some wan said 'twud be a fine thing f'r science if a white man cud get to th' North Pole. What he'd do if he got there no wan has anny thought. Accordin' to what I hear, th' North Pole ain't like a tillygraft pole, a barber pole, a fishin' pole, a clothes pole, a poll-tax, a Maypole, a Russhyan Pole, or annything that ye can see, smell or ate. Whin ye get to it, it is no diff'rent fr'm bein' annywhere on th' ice. Th' on'y way ye know ye're there is be consultin' a pocket arithmetic, a watch an' a compass. Don't get it into ye'er head that if me frind Baldwin ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne

... when she told about the prim old gentleman who came once to woo Aunt March, and in the middle of a fine speech, how Poll had tweaked his wig off to his great dismay, the boy lay back and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and a maid popped her head in to see what was ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... and Contributions, shewing the Nature and Measures of Crown Lands, Assessments, Customs, Poll-monies, Lotteries, Benevolence, Penalty Monopolies, Offices, Tythes, Raising of Coines, Hearth-money, Excise, and with several intersperst Discourses and Digressions concerning Wars, the Church Universities, Rents, and ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... I have, Sam," cried Harry. "How's old Poll? Bid her come up to Draw's to-morrow night—I've got a red and yellow frock for ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... Monday and tell them of his intentions regarding Panama tolls. We discussed whether it would be better to see some of them individually, or to take them collectively. It was agreed that the latter course was better. It was decided, however, to have Senator Jones poll the Senate in order to find just how it stood before getting the Committee together. The reason for this quick action was in response to your letter urging that something be done before the 10th of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... the property tax, which is quite low, one and a half per cent. Every male adult pays a poll tax of one dollar, a school tax of two dollars, and a road tax of two dollars. The following is the detail of the internal taxes for the ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... "Nothing, my cousin Poll, nothing," he replied. "You know that is my way of expressing approval. And you look so pretty standing there in the shade, that I would break any man's neck who didn't applaud. Shake hands, says you, I'll shake hands with a vengeance." So saying, he caught ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... him to raise his arm; away went the ruler whizzing through the air, until it hit the skull of the lad for whom it was intended at the other end of the schoolroom. The boy, who had been talking to his neighbour, rubbed his poll, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... the keepers of pot-houses, and had enlisted a strong body of porters and chairmen. The two parties, after exchanging a good deal of abuse, came to blows. The adherents of the ministers were victorious, put the adverse mob to the rout, and cudgelled Colt himself into a muddy ditch. The poll was taken in Westminster Hall. From the first there was no doubt of the result. But Colt tried to prolong the contest by bringing up a voter an hour. When it became clear that this artifice was employed for the purpose of causing delay, the returning officer took on himself the responsibility ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and all of these they had something to say. As to the financial part of the undertaking they were of opinion that the Common Council should pass an Act for raising a sum of L15,000, and no more, upon the members of the wealthier livery companies, by poll, the inferior companies being spared. The report having been approved by the court a deputation was appointed to wait upon the Privy Council with the City's answer on the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so, You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?) Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, Where in the foreground kneels the donor? If such remain, as is my conviction, The hoarding it does ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... ancient and moderne, that so I may the better cleare it from the prejudice either of an upstart fancy, or an absolute errour. This is by some attributed to Orpheus, one of the most ancient Greeke Poets, who speaking of the Moone, saies thus, he poll' ourea echei, poll' astea, polla melathra,[1] That it hath many mountaines and cities, and houses in it. To him assented Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Heraclitus,[2] all who thought ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins

... council was provided for to be "composed of two members from each state by elections to be held at a poll at which each colored inhabitant may vote who pays ten cents as a poll tax, and each state shall elect at such election delegates to state conventions twenty in number from each State ...
— The Early Negro Convention Movement - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 9 • John W. Cromwell

... the lineaments of his face. How much the constant use of oatmeal could produce such an effect, was plainly visible in the countenances of McGibbet and his lady-love. Both had an unmistakable equine cast; McGibbet, wild, scraggy, and scrubby, with a tuft on his poll that would not have been out of place between the ears of a plough-horse, stared at us, just as such an animal would naturally over the top of a fence; while his gentle mate, who had more of the amiable draught-horse in her aspect, winked at us with ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... we made immediate overtures to Poll, for the purpose of establishing a firm friendship, but our advances were met with dignified coolness, while Day, who attempted to scratch the bird's head, got severely bitten for ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... midst of these delicacies when, to the sound of music, Trimalchio himself was carried in and bolstered up in a nest of small cushions, which forced a snicker from the less wary. A shaven poll protruded from a scarlet mantle, and around his neck, already muffled with heavy clothing, he had tucked a napkin having a broad purple stripe and a fringe that hung down all around. On the little ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter



Words linked to "Poll" :   circularise, trim, enumeration, crop, canvass, Equus caballus, lop, exit poll, parrot, inquiry, counting, numeration, top, canvas, vote, poll taker, snip, straw poll, upside, survey, red poll, research, enquiry, human head, tonsure, pate, acquire, dress, get, tally, prune, count, pollard, cow, deed poll, straw vote, poll parrot



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