Meaning of Maypole | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A surname.
2. A pole, garlanded with streamers held by people who dance around it to celebrate May Day.
3. A place in England:
4. A settlement on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, off the coast of Cornwall (OS grid ref SV9211).
5. A very tall girl or young lady.
   idiomatic
6. A settlement near the village of Chelsfield, borough of Bromley, Greater London (OS grid ref TQ4963).
7. A maypole-like structure of sticks placed about a sapling in the bowers of certain species of bowerbird.
8. A village in Dartford borough, Kent (OS grid ref TQ5173).
9. A penis, especially a large one.
   euphemistic
10. A settlement in Hoath parish, Canterbury district, Kent (OS grid ref TR2064).
11. A settlement in Whitecastle community, Monmouthshire, Wales (OS grid ref SO4716).

Equivalents

Examples

“How would you like the maypole decorated?”

“The maypole, the focal point of many traditional spring games and festivities, is believed to be a relic of ancient phallic worship.”

“At Ickwell Green, in Bedfordshire, there is a permanent maypole. There, the May Queen is accompanied by moggies (raggedly dressed women) carrying besoms - birch-twig brooms.”

“The male Golden Bowerbird is a beautiful bird that builds one of the greatest structures in the natural world, a maypole up to three metres tall constructed of sticks and festooned with decorative clusters of flowers and lichens.”

“and now, disengag'd from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ'd, it must have belong'd to a young giant.”

Fanny Hill

CEFR level