Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Maypole |
MaypoleNoun1. A vertical pole or post decorated with streamers that can be held by dancers celebrating May Day. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "maypole" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1596. (references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Height | Tall as a maypole, tall as a poplar, tall as a steeple, lanky; (thin). |
Pole, pikestaff, maypole, flagstaff; top mast, topgallant mast. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
It is a tall wooden pole (traditionally of hawthorn or birch), with several long coloured ribbons suspended from the top. The top of the Maypole is often festooned with flowers and greenery.
In Sweden it appears in many varieties, the most common being a cross with two rings hanging from the "arms".
The Maypole as a simple pole is several centuries old in England, but the addition of ribbons is an invention of John Ruskin in the 19th century. Pairs of boys and girls (or men and women) stand alternately around the base of the pole, each holding the end of a ribbon. They weave in and around each other, boys going one way and girls going the other and the ribbons are woven together around the pole until the merry-makers meet at the base. There are also more complex dances for set numbers of (practised) dancers, involving complicated weaves and un-weaves, but they're not much known today.
Today maypole dances are often done without dividing the participants by gender, simply having them in pairs facing one another so half go one way and half go the other. This weaving of the Maypole is considered by some to be a magickal act.
In Sweden similar traditions were once observed but today the pole is the centre of traditional ring dances, the songs being more or less the same as during the dances around the Christmas tree.
The Maypole is often considered a phallic symbol, but its origin may be similar to that of the Bile Pole of the Celts. The Bile Pole is similar to the Norse World Tree, Yggdrasil, in that it connects the heavens, the earth, and the otherworld. In Sweden, the pole is popularly identified with the male sex and the rings with the female.
The Maypole is usually erected on a village green, and events are often supervised by local Morris dancing groups. In Sweden it is usually arranged by the local traditions groups.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Maypole."
Crosswords: Maypole |
| English words defined with "maypole": May pole. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Maypole Dance (1900) Winding the Maypole (1898) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Maypole dance, Central Park, New York.Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Children swinging on maypole, La Forge, Missouri. Project school at Southeast Missouri Farms.Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Summer and Magruder school. Maypole dance at Summer and Magruder School.Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| "Maypole" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 95.12% of the time. "Maypole" is used about 82 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 95.12% | 78 | 37,656 |
| Noun (proper) | 2.44% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (common) | 2.44% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 82 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "maypole": maypole-raising. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
maypole | 41 |
dance maypole | 8 |
maypole merry mount | 4 |
dancing maypole | 3 |
maypole chevrolet | 3 |
maypole swedish | 3 |
maypole merrymount | 2 |
maypole picture | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "maypole"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | shumë i lartë (lofty, sky high, utmost), dru maji i stolisur. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | върлина (pole), дългуч. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | májka. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | maibaum. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | γαϊτανάκι. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | májusfa. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | maio, albero di maggio. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | croan Boaldyn. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | aypolemay presidência de município. (various references) arminden. (various references) верзила, майское дерево. (various references) motka oko koje se igra na dan prvog maja. (various references) mayo (campbell, May, mayo). (various references) majstång. (various references) เสาในงานฉลองวันแรงงาน ประ"ับ"้วย"อกไม้และริบบิ้น. (various references) bahar bayramı çiçekli direği. (various references) травневе дерево. (various references) hoa (carpet, flower), dựng lên để mọi người nhảy múa xung quanh. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "maypole": maypoles. (additional references) | |
| |
"Maypole" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Faipule, Macpuke, Mapole, Marpol, Mayol. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-l-m-o-p-y" | |
-1 letter: employ. | |
-2 letters: amole, ample, amply, loamy, maple, mealy, mopey, myope, palmy. | |
-3 letters: alme, aloe, amyl, elmy, lame, lamp, leap, loam, lope, male, mayo, meal, mola, mole, moly, mope, mopy, olea, opal, pale, palm, paly, peal, play, plea, ploy, poem, pole, poly, pome, yelp, ylem. | |
-4 letters: ale, alp, amp, ape, aye, elm, lam, lap, lay. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-l-m-o-p-y" | |
+1 letter: maypoles. | |
+2 letters: polyamide, polyamine. | |
+3 letters: employable, episomally, hypodermal, lampoonery, methyldopa, myelopathy, plasmolyze, polyamides, polyamines, polygamies, polygamize, polymerase, propylaeum, temporally. | |
+4 letters: amylopectin, complacency, employables, hypokalemia, hypokalemic, hypothermal, methyldopas, myelopathic, plasmolyses, plasmolyzed, plasmolyzes, polarimetry, polemically, polygamized, polygamizes, polymathies, polymerases, proximately, sympetalous, temporality, temporarily. | |
+5 letters: amylopectins, cephalometry, complacently, extemporally, hepatomegaly, hypocalcemia, hypocalcemic, hypoglycemia, hypokalemias, impersonally, imponderably, microcephaly, myelopathies, phenomenally, phonemically, pinealectomy, pneumatology, polycythemia, rampageously, splenomegaly, unemployable. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4D 61 79 70 6F 6C 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-- .- -.--. .--. --- .-.. . |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001101 01100001 01111001 01110000 01101111 01101100 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)M a y p o l e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004D 0061 0079 0070 006F 006C 0065 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)47679182817871 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Anagrams | 13. Orthography 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
