Meaning of thole | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A pin in the side of a boat which acts as a fulcrum for the oars.
2. A surname.
3. A cupola, a dome, a rotunda; a tholus.
4. A pin, or handle, of the snath (shaft) of a scythe.

Equivalents

Examples

“Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie. / After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the distance, / As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, [...]”

“The oars squeaked against the tholes, the blades dipped with a steady beat, and the sun beat down: the boat crept across the sea.”

“The nature of my invention consists in curving forward that portion of the scythe snath below the right nib or thole, to such an extent as to form an obtuse angle between the scythe and snath at the point where they are joined, and also in such a manner as to equalize the labor between the right and left hands; whereas, in snaths now in use, the greatest amount of labor falls upon the right arm.”

“For my own stature, which is five feet eight inches, I find that two feet six inches from the heel to the lower thole, just right, and the tholes should be eighteen inches apart. For smooth land, the scythe should be three feet nine inches' shorter for lodged clover and rough ground. The point should be set three feet five inches from the upper thole.”

“Philostratus relates that the king's house in Babylon had a roof of brass, which shone like lightning, and that in that house there was a chamber, whose ceiling was a thole (that is, a concave hemisphere) made in imitation of some system of the heaven, and with sapphire-coloured stones, […] and from the thole were suspended four golden doves, or iynges, who were called the Tongues of the Gods.”

CEFR level