subs. (printers’).—1. The weekly account for wages.
2. (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see CREAMSTICK and PRICK. Hence POLING (or POLE-WORK) = copulation.
Verb. (American university).—To study hard.
UP THE POLE, phr. (military).—In good report: also goody-goody; strait-laced.
2. (common).—Over-matched; in difficulty.
1886–96. MARSHALL, ‘Pomes’ from the Pink ’Un [‘The Word of a Policeman’], 73. But, one cruel day, behind two slops he chanced to take a stroll, And … he heard himself alluded to as being UP THE POLE.
1899. Daily Mail, 29 March, 5, 1. When there are nineteen Frenchmen to four Englishmen they were slightly UP THE POLE. Nineteen, you know, were rather too many for them.
LIKE A ROPE-DANCER’S POLE, phr. (old).—‘Lead at both ends; a saying of a stupid sluggish fellow.’—GROSE (1785).
