poll

1 of 2

noun

ˈpōl

Synonyms of poll next

: head

: the top or back of the head

: nape

: the broad or flat end of a striking tool (such as a hammer)

a(1)

: the casting or recording of the votes of a body of persons

(2)

: a counting of votes cast

: the place where votes are cast or recorded

—usually used in plural

at the polls

: the period of time during which votes may be cast at an election

: the total number of votes recorded

a heavy poll

: a questioning or canvassing of persons selected at random or by quota to obtain information or opinions to be analyzed

: a record of the information so obtained

poll

2 of 2

verb

polled; polling; polls

transitive verb

: to cut off or cut short the hair or wool of : crop, shear

: to cut off or cut short (a material, such as wool)

: to cut off or back the top of (something, such as a tree)

specifically : pollard

: to cut off or cut short the horns of (cattle)

: to receive and record the votes of

: to request each member of to declare a vote individually

poll the assembly

: to receive (votes) in an election

: to question or canvass in a poll

: to check (devices, such as several computer terminals sharing a single line) in sequence for messages waiting to be transmitted

intransitive verb

: to cast one's vote at a poll

pollee

pō-ˈlē

noun

poller

ˈpō-lər

noun

Example Sentences

Noun The magazine conducted a poll to find out the favorite 100 movies of all time. A recent poll shows a decrease in the number of teenagers who smoke. The polls are open until 8:00 tonight. Verb About half of the people polled had tried smoking. The conservative candidate polled more than 10,000 votes in the last election.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

All of these suspicions, and more, arise as public approval of the nation’s highest court has fallen to an all-time low in the run-up to the one-year anniversary of the court’s highly controversial decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. —

Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune, 25 June 2023 Four in 10 California residents are considering packing up and leaving, a new poll finds. —

Elvia Limón, Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2023 While polls show that a majority of Indian Americans support Democrats, the group is far from monolithic. —

Toluse Olorunnipa, Ellen Nakashima, Gerry Shih and Abigail Hauslohner, The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, 22 June 2023 Discuss away—and cast your own votes at our readers’ poll here. —

The New Republic, 22 June 2023 That view is not widely shared by Black adults with a bachelor’s degree, who supported the consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions by more than a 2-to-1 margin in a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. —

Amy Harmon, New York Times, 21 June 2023 In addition to a string of high-profile media appearances, Kennedy has also registered some support in early polls so far: One survey from Quinnipiac University this month showed him at 17% versus Biden at 70%. —

Nicholas Kerr, ABC News, 21 June 2023 Safety from crime is the biggest concern riders have about the Metro system, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted earlier this year. —

Heidi Pérez-Moreno, Washington Post, 17 June 2023 That’s up from 68% of Democrats who said the same in a September 2008 poll, an increase of 21 percentage points. —

Chuck Todd, NBC News, 16 June 2023

Verb

Christie is polling in third place among likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire. —

Steven Porter, BostonGlobe.com, 23 June 2023 The move, as the Verge reported, came after mods polled members. —

Vulture, 18 June 2023 The blockbuster has yet to receive a grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore. —

Christi Carras, Los Angeles Times, 4 June 2023 Pence currently polls in third or fourth place for the Republican primaries, with Trump steadily in the lead. —

Misty Severi, Washington Examiner, 2 June 2023 Under current commission rules, any candidate who is polling at 15 percent nationally, appears on enough ballots to win 270 electoral votes and is constitutionally eligible for the job receives an invitation to participate. —

Josh Dawsey, Washington Post, 2 May 2023 The only other candidate in double digits is Ryan Quarles, the state agriculture commissioner (Bluegrass Freedom Action polled 545 likely primary voters last week by phone and has a margin-of-error of 4.6%). —

Ben Kamisar, NBC News, 1 May 2023 Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting adjusted earnings of 20 cents a share. —

Will Feuer, WSJ, 11 Apr. 2023 Only three percent of those polled took more than three weeks away from work to recover. —

Hannah Baxter, Allure, 13 Mar. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'poll.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.