bole

noun

1. 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.”

   “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.”

2. (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.”

3. (countable, uncountable)The shade of reddish brown which resembles this clay.
4. (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.”

5. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of boll (old unit of measure).

   “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”

6. (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[…].”

7. (Scotland)A small closet.

name

1. A Chadic language native to Nigeria.
2. A county-level city of Bortala prefecture, Xinjiang autonomous region, China.

   “As September gets under way, the fields and open country of southern Xinjiang, stretching from Turpan through Korla, Aksu and Kashi to Hotan, as well as the northern country areas from Manas and Shihu westwards across to Bole (Bortala), are all abloom with silvery, snow-white blossoms.”

   “"We are destined to become a very important region," said Hua Dingchuan, a trade official in Bole, a city that 10 years ago had virtually no private cars, and now is as densely developed and busy as any American suburb.[…] Bole, a city in Xinjiang Province, is now densely developed and has the conveniences of modern Chinese life.”

   “In the city of Bole, retired teachers from the Wutubulage Middle School were called in to stand guard at mosques and prevent students from entering, according to a statement on the municipal party committee website. Also in Bole, the Bozhou University of Radio and Television said on its website it held a meeting with working and retired minority teachers on the first day of the Ramadan to remind them of the fasting ban.”

3. A town in Ghana.
4. A village and civil parish of Nottinghamshire, England.
5. A surname.