Emily Dickinson Lexicon

POLL'ER, n. [from poll.]

1. One that shaves persons; a barber. [Not used.]
2. One that lops or polls trees.
3. A pillager; a plunderer; one that fleeces by exaction. [Not used.] – Bacon.
4. One that registers voters, or one that enters his name as a voter.

POLL-E'VIL, n. [poll and evil.]

A swelling or apostem on a horse's head, or on the nape of the neck between the ears. – Mar. Dict.

POL-LI-CI-TA'TION, n. [L. pollicitatio.]

A promise; a voluntary engagement, or a paper containing it. – Henry's Britain.

POL-LINC'TOR, n. [L.]

One that prepares materials for embalming the dead; a kind of undertaker. – Greenhill.

POLL-ING, ppr.

1. Lopping; as the tops of trees.
2. Registering one's name as a voter. [See Poll.]

POL-LIN-IF'ER-OUS, a. [L. pollen and fero, to produce.]

Producing pollen.

POL'LOCK, or POL'LACK, n.

A fish, a species of Gadus or cod.

POL-LUTE, a.

Polluted; defiled. – Milton.

POL-LUTE, v.t. [L. polluo; Fr. polluer. If this word is compound, as I suspect, it seems to be composed of the preposition po, which is in the Russian language and retained in the L. polluceo and possideo, and according to Ainsworth, of lavo. But this combination would not naturally give the signification. If the word is simple, the first syllable coincides with foul. But neither is this etymology satisfactory. Qu. Gr. μολυνω.]

1. To defile; to make foul or unclean; in a general sense. But appropriately, among the Jews, to make unclean or impure, in a legal or ceremonial sense, so as to disqualify a person for sacred services, or to render things unfit for sacred uses. – Num. xviii. Exod. xx. 2 Kings xxiii. 2 Chron. xxxvi.
2. To taint with guilt. Ye pollute yourselves with all your idols. – Ezek. xx.
3. To profane; to use for carnal or idolatrous purposes. My sabbaths they greatly polluted. – Ezek. xx.
4. To corrupt or impair by mixture of ill, moral or physical. Envy you my praise, and would destroy / With grief my pleasures, and pollute my joy? – Dryden.
5. To violate by illegal sexual commerce.

POL-LUT-ED, pp.

Defiled; rendered unclean; tainted with guilt; impaired; profaned.

POL-LUT-ED-NESS, n.

The state of being polluted; defilement.

POL-LUT-ER, n.

A defiler; one that pollutes or profanes.

POL-LUT-ING, ppr.

1. Defiling; rendering unclean; corrupting; profaning.
2. adj. Adapted or tending to defile or infect.

POL-LUT'ING-LY, adv.

Corruptingly.

POL-LU'TION, n. [L. pollutio; Fr. pollution; Sp. polucion, It. polluzione.]

1. The act of polluting.
2. Defilement; uncleanness; impurity; the state of being polluted.
3. In the Jewish economy, legal or ceremonial uncleanness, which disqualified a person for sacred services or for common intercourse with the people, or rendered any thing unfit for sacred use.
4. In medicine, the emission of semen in sleep.
5. In a religious sense, guilt, the effect of sin; idolatry, &c.

POL'LUX, n.

1. A fixed star of the second magnitude, in the constellation Gemini or the twins. – Encyc.
2. [See CASTOR.]

POL-O-NAISE, or POL-O-NESE, n.

A robe or dress adopted from the fashion of the Poles; sometimes worn by ladies.

POL-O-NESE, n.

The Polish language. – Encyc.

POL'O-NOISE, n.

In music, a movement of three crotchets in a bar, with the rhythmical cesure on the last. – Busby.

POLT, n. [Sw. bulta, to beat.]

A blow, stroke or striking; a word in common popular use in New England.

POLT-FOOT, or POLT-FOOT-ED, a.

Having distorted feet. [Not in use.] – B. Jonson.

POLT-FOOT, n.

A distorted foot. [Not in use.] – Herbert.

POL-TROON', n. [Fr. poltron; It. poltrone, an idle fellow, a coward; poltrire, to sleep, to be idle, to loiter; Sp. poltron, idle, lazy, easy, commodious; Port. poltram, an idler; poltram, poltrona, lazy, cowardly; Arm. poultroun; certainly not from pollice truncato. The primary sense is idle, at ease, whence lazy; perhaps from the root of fail, W. pallu.]

An arrant coward; a dastard; a wretch without spirit or courage. – Dryden.

POL-TROON'ER-Y, n.

Cowardice; baseness of mind; want of spirit.

POL'VE-RIN, or POL'VE-RINE, n. [L. pulvis, dust; It. polverino.]

The calcined ashes of a plant, of the nature of pot and pearl ashes, brought from the Levant and Syria. In the manufacture of glass, it is preferred to other ashes, as the glass made with it is perfectly white. – Encyc.