pollman

See also: Pollman

English

Etymology

Blend of poll (“ordinary university degree”) +‎ man. First part from Ancient Greek πολλοί (polloí, “the many, the masses”). Second part from Middle English man, from Old English mann m (“human being, person, man”).

Noun

pollman (plural pollmen)

1. (UK, historical, Cambridge University slang) One who takes an ordinary university degree, without honours.
   • 1860 July 1, “IX. Cambridge University Reform”, in The British Quarterly Review, volume 32, page 227:

     Even the wretched pollmen cannot be expected to unravel the quirks and catches in their elementary papers with any degree of credit, unless they have been privately trained for the purpose.

   • 1869 January 16, “A French View of English Schools”, in The Saturday Review, volume 27, number 690, page 92:

     Nevertheless, it is tolerably clear, from various parts of their Report, that while they believe the best Harrow or Rugby boy to be equal to the picked scholars of their own schools, they are persuaded that the average Harrow or Rugby boy—one, for example, who goes from the fifth form to be a pollman at Cambridge or an officer in the army—knows less, and has received less intellectual training and intellectual stimulus, than a French boy of the same age.

   • 1889 March 2, Academy:

     It is related of some Cambridge poll-man that he was once so ill-advised as to desert a private tutor.

Synonyms

• passman, poll

Related terms

• go out in the poll

References

• Farmer, John Stephen (1900) The Public School Word-Book‎^[1], London: Hirshfeld Brothers, page 154
• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1902) “pollman”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume V, [London: […] Harrison and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 246.