the.com/pole
a humble stick that holds up flags, dancers, fishermen, and entire planets' worth of magnetism.
means A long, slender, usually cylindrical length of wood, metal, or other material, used for supporting, propelling, or marking things; also either of the two fixed points (geographic or magnetic) at the ends of an axis.
from Two distinct words wearing one spelling. The 'stick' pole comes from Old English 'pal,' borrowed from Latin 'palus' meaning stake — the same root that gives us 'pale' (as in a fence paling) and 'impale.' The 'end-of-an-axis' pole arrived later through Latin 'polus,' from Greek 'polos,' meaning a pivot or axis — the point around which the heavens were imagined to turn. So the fisherman's rod and the magnetic North Pole are linguistic strangers who happened to spell their names the same.
- magnetic drift
- North magnetic pole moves toward Russia yearly
- pole reversal
- Earth's magnetic poles flip every few hundred thousand years
- vaulting limit
- Pole vaulters clear over six meters of air
- barber stripes
- The pole's red stripes once meant bloodletting service
north pole — geographic point at 90°n latitude, northernmost location on earth
south pole — geographic point at 90°s latitude, southernmost location on earth
magnetic north pole — where earth's magnetic field lines converge, currently in canadian arctic, shifts annually