pool
A supply of resources.
Noun
- A supply of resources.
- The 4-BEP and 4-CEP stock is maintained in a common pool for both Chatham and South Eastern fast main-line services. - 1962 June, Rupert Shervington, “The planning and execution of the Kent Coast electrification”, in...
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A number of people when considered as a resource.
- dating pool
- There is a limited pool of candidates from which to choose the new manager.
- This is not necessarily surprising; employers often use recessions to pay new workers less because they have such a large pool of potential applicants to choose from, says Ruth Milkman, the Labor Studies Chair at the...
- A game at billiards, in which each of the players stakes a certain sum, the winner taking the whole; also, in public billiard rooms, a game in which the loser pays the entrance fee for all who engage in the game.
- A cue sport played on a pool table. There are 15 balls, 7 of one colour or solids, 7 of another color or stripes, and the black ball (also called the 8 ball). A player must pocket all their own colour balls and then the black ball in order to win.
- He plays pool at the billiard-houses, and may be seen engaged at cards and dominoes of forenoons. - 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 23, in The Book of Snobs:
- In rifle shooting, a contest in which each competitor pays a certain sum for every shot he makes, the net proceeds being divided among the winners.
- A group of fencers taking part in a competition.
Synonyms: poule
- A set of teams playing each other in the same division, while not during the same period playing any teams that belong to other sets in the division.
Synonyms: group
- Any gambling or commercial venture in which several persons join.
- The stake played for in certain games of cards, billiards, etc.; an aggregated stake to which each player has contributed a share; also, the receptacle for the stakes.
- A combination of persons contributing money to be used for the purpose of increasing or depressing the market price of stocks, grain, or other commodities; also, the aggregate of the sums so contributed.
- The pool took all the wheat offered below the limit.
- He put $10,000 into the pool.
- A set of players in quadrille etc.
- A mutual arrangement between competing lines, by which the receipts of all are aggregated, and then distributed pro rata according to agreement.
- An aggregation of properties or rights, belonging to different people in a community, in a common fund, to be charged with common liabilities.
Origin
1. From French poule (“collective stakes in a game”). The French word "poule" in this context is an abbreviation of "poulain, pouliche" (foal, filly), and referred to races with female horses under 3 years old. It then became used by punters to designate bets on that race, and started to be used from the racetrack to the stadiums. 2. The OED suggests that this may be a transferred use of poule (“hen”), which has been explained anecdotally as deriving from an old informal betting game in France - 'jeu de poule' - Game of Chicken (or Hen, literally) in which poule became synonymous with the combined money pot claimed by the winner.
Forms
Derived
antipool blind pool bumper pool carpool cesspool cowboy pool cowpool deadpool dirty pool gene pool Kelly pool meme pool motor pool office pool pool hall poolroom pool spray poolster pool table subpool unpool vanpool wordpool
Noun Entry 2
- A small and rather deep area of (usually) fresh water, as one supplied by a spring, or occurring in the course of a stream or river; a reservoir for water.
- the pools of Solomon
- the Pool of London
- […] at laſt I left them I’ th’ filthy mantled poole beyond your Cell, There dancing vp to th’ chins, that the fowle Lake Ore-ſtunck their feet. - 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr....
- Any small body of standing or stagnant water; a puddle.
- Ellipsis of swimming pool.
- A set of resources that are kept ready to use.
- Any group of like things.
- A small amount of liquid on a surface.
- a pool of blood
- A localized glow of light.
- He walked slowly, passing through one pool of light after another, his shadow running tall across the fronts of the barber shop, the Western Auto, the video-rental shop. - 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things:
Origin
From Middle English pool, pole, pol, from Old English pōl (“pool”), from Proto-West Germanic pōl, from Proto-Germanic *pōlaz (“pool, pond”), from Proto-Indo-European *bōlos (“bog, marsh”). Cognate with Scots puil (“pool”), Saterland Frisian Pol (“pool”), West Frisian poel (“pool”), Dutch poel (“pool”), German Low German Pohl, Pool, Pul (“pool”), German Pfuhl (“quagmire, mudhole”), Danish pøl (“puddle”), Swedish pöl (“puddle, pool”), Icelandic pollur (“puddle”), Lithuanian bala (“puddle”), Latvian bala (“a muddly, treeless depression”), Russian боло́то (bolóto, “swamp, bog, marsh”). For the meaning development to a supply of resources compare typologically Russian пруд пруди́ (prud prudí) (< пруд (prud)).
Forms
Derived
ball pool bank pool birthing pool black pool brine pool Bromborough Pool carpool cow pool cowpool dark pool dead pool death pool drop the kiddies off at the pool drop the kids off at the pool everlasting pool fishpool flood pool football pool hot pool infinity-edge pool infinity pool jury pool Kelly pool kiddie pool
Verb Entry 3
- To put together; contribute to a common fund, on the basis of a mutual division of profits or losses; to make a common interest of.
- We must pool our resources.
- “She must be exceedingly clever to have beaten the police the way she has for the last few years; and—er—I worship at the shrine of cleverness—especially if it be a woman’s. The idea struck me last night that if she and...
- It all started 6 years ago, as Rutgers University scientists Allan Conney, Ph.D., and George C. Wagner, Ph.D., chatted at an office get-together. […] From this conversation, the two decided to pool their knowledge and...
- To combine or contribute with others, as for a commercial, speculative, or gambling transaction.
Forms
Derived
Verb Entry 4
- To form a pool.