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.