Also 7 boal(e, 7–8 boll. [a. ON. bol-r masc., also written bulr, trunk of a tree; cf. MHG. bole (fem.), mod.G. bohle plank.]
The stem or trunk of a tree.
c. 1314. Guy Warw. (1840), 260. His nek is greter than a bole.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., B. 622. By bole of þis brode tre we byde þe here.
1521. Fisher, Wks. (1876), 315. The shadowe of the bole of the tree.
1641. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 32. Five upright and exceeding tall suckers, or bolls.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 158. Whose boughs shoot from the boal fifteen or sixteen yards.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Dressing, Boughs and Suckers, which have made themselves and the Boll knotty.
1848. Lytton, Harold, I. 306. Gnarled boles of pollard oaks and beeches.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, IV. I. 129. A fair, smooth bole, with boughs Only on high.
b. transf. Anything of a cylindrical shape like the trunk of a tree, as a roll, a pillar.
1676. True Gentleman’s Delight (N.). Make it up in little long boles or rowles.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 11 Jan., 1/2. The sky … seen between the boles of stone.
c. Comb., as † bole-fashion adv., bole-like adj.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. l. 508. Another Holy, whose roote is not bolefashion.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm. (1858), 313. The bole-like stems of great plants.
