thole

English

Pronunciation

• IPA: /θəʊl/

Etymology 1

From Middle English tholen, tholien, from Old English þolian (“to thole, endure, suffer, undergo”), from Proto-Germanic *þuljanan (“to suffer”), from Proto-Indo-European *tol-, *tel-, *tel(ə)- (“to bear, support, suffer”). Cognate with Middle Low German dōlen (“to endure”), Middle High German doln (“to bear, suffer, allow”), Danish tåle (“to tolerate”), Norwegian tola (“to tolerate”), Latin tollō (“to cancel, lift off, remove”), Latin tolerō (“to bear, endure”).

Verb

thole (third-person singular simple present tholes, present participle tholing, simple past and past participle tholed)

1. To suffer or undergo.

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Fiction:

     Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale so God’s angel to Mary quoth.

2. To endure, to tolerate, to put up with.

   • 1998, Richard Conniff, Every Creeping Thing, Nature, H. Holt, ISBN 9780805056976:

     They are not known to write poems of regret or to utter the Ukrainian equivalent of Burns's lament that the evicted mice will have "to thole the winter's sleety dribble, An' cranreuch cauld!"

Etymology 2

From Middle English, from Old English þol (“thole, oar-pin”), from Proto-Germanic *þullaz, *þullō (“thole, beam”), from Proto-Indo-European *tūl-, *twel- (“sphere, bush”). Cognate with Dutch dol (“thole”), German Dolle (“oar-lock, thole”), Danish toll (“thole”).

Noun

thole (plural tholes)

1. a pin in the side of a boat which acts as a fulcrum for the oars

   • 1973: The oars squeaked against the tholes, the blades dipped with a steady beat, and the sun beat down: the boat crept across the sea. — Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise

Anagrams

• helot
• hotel

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Latin

Noun

thole

1. vocative singular of tholus