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armour: armour: [13] Armour comes ultimately from Latin armātūra ‘armour, equipment’, a derivative of the verb armāre ‘arm’ (the direct English borrowing armature [15] originally meant ‘armour’ or ‘weapons’, but the ‘protective’ notion of armour led to its application in the 18th century to ‘metal covering the poles of a magnet’). In Old French armātūra became armeure, and subsequently armure, the form in which it was borrowed into English (the -our ending was artificially grafted on in the 14th century on the model of other Latin-based words such as colour and odour). Armoury is French in origin: Old French armoier ‘coat of arms’ was a derivative of arme ‘weapon’; this became armoirie, which was borrowed into English in the 15th century as armory, meaning ‘heraldry’, but also, owing to their formal similarity, came to be used with the same sense as armour – ‘protective metal suit’ or ‘weapons’.

This was what armoury meant when it came into English in the 14th century (and the sense survived long enough to be used by Wordsworth in a sonnet to ‘Liberty’ 1802: ‘In our halls is hung armoury of invincible knights of old’). The meaning ‘place for keeping weapons’ developed in the 16th century.
=> armature
askance: askance: [16] The origins of askance remain obscure. When it first entered the language it meant literally ‘obliquely, sideways’ (‘He bid his angels turn askance the poles of Earth’, John Milton, Paradise Lost 1667), so a possible source is Italian a scancio ‘obliquely, slantingly’, but this has never been firmly established. Its metaphorical use in the phrase look askance dates from the 17th century.
gallows: gallows: [13] Gallows was probably borrowed from Old Norse gálgi (the related Old English galga does not seem to have survived into the Middle English period). Both go back to a prehistoric Germanic *galgon ‘pole’, whose descendants, which also include Old High German galgo and Gothic galga, were often used for the ‘cross on which Christ was crucified’. The plurality of modern English gallows presumably comes from the fact that technically a gallows consists of two upright poles with a cross-piece in between (as opposed to a gibbet, which has a single upright).
scaffold: scaffold: [14] Historically, scaffold and catafalque [17] ‘coffin-stand’ are virtually the same word. Catafalque comes via French catafalque and Italian catafalco from Vulgar Latin *catafalcum, a word of uncertain origin. Combination with the prefix ex- produced *excatafalcum, which passed into English via Old French eschaffaut and Anglo-Norman *scaffaut.

The word originally denoted any sort of platform, and did not narrow down to ‘platform for executions’ until the 16th century. The derivative scaffolding, a term which originally alluded to the platforms set up around a building rather than to poles supporting them, also dates from the 14th century.
=> catafalque
tadpole: tadpole: [15] A tadpole is etymologically a ‘toad-head’. The word was coined from Middle English tadde ‘toad’ and pol ‘head’ (ancestor of modern English poll ‘voting’, historically a counting of ‘heads’). Tadpoles, with their moonlike faces appearing to take up about half of their small globular bodies, seem rather like animated heads.
=> poll, toad
acre (n.): Old English æcer "tilled field, open land," from Proto-Germanic *akraz "field, pasture" (cognates: Old Norse akr, Old Saxon akkar, Old Frisian ekker, Middle Dutch acker, Dutch akker, Old High German achar, German acker, Gothic akrs), from PIE *agro- "field" (cognates: Latin ager "field, land," Greek agros, Sanskrit ajras "plain, open country").

Originally in English without reference to dimension; in late Old English the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plow in a day, afterward defined by statute as a piece 40 poles by 4, or an equivalent shape (5 Edw. I, 31 Edw. III, 24 Hen. VIII). Original sense retained in God's acre "churchyard."
bibliopole (n.): "bookseller," 1775, from Latin bibliopola, from Greek bibliopoles "bookseller," from biblion "book" (see bible) + poles "merchant, seller" (see monopoly).
bipolar (adj.): "having two poles," from bi- + polar; 1810 with figurative sense of "of double aspect;" 1859 with reference to physiology. Psychiatric use in reference to what had been called manic-depressive psychosis is said to have begun 1957 with German psychiatrist Karl Leonhard. The term became popular early 1990s. Bipolar disorder was in DSM III (1980).
cowboy (n.): 1725, "boy who tends to cows," from cow (n.) + boy. Sense in Western U.S. is from 1849; in figurative use by 1942 for "brash and reckless young man" (as an adjective meaning "reckless," from 1920s). Cowhand is first attested 1852 in American English (see hand (n.)). Cowpoke (said to be 1881, not in popular use until 1940s) was said to be originally restricted to the cowboys who prodded cattle onto railroad cars with long poles.
equator (n.): late 14c., from Medieval Latin aequator (diei et noctis) "equalizer (of day and night)," agent noun from Latin aequare "make equal" (see equate). When the sun is on the celestial equator, twice annually, day and night are of equal length. Sense of "celestial equator" is earliest, extension to "terrestrial line midway between the poles" first recorded in English 1610s.
gallows (n.): c. 1300, plural of Middle English galwe "gallows" (mid-13c.), from Old Norse galgi "gallows," or from Old English galga (Mercian), gealga (West Saxon) "gallows;" all from Proto-Germanic *galgon "pole" (cognates: Old Frisian galga, Old Saxon galgo, Middle High German galge "gallows, cross," German Galgen "gallows," Gothic galga "cross"), from PIE *ghalgh- "branch, rod" (cognates: Lithuanian zalga "pole, perch," Armenian dzalk "pole"). In Old English, also used of the cross of the crucifixion. Plural because made of two poles. Gallows-tree is Old English galg-treow. Gallows humor (1881) translates German Galgenhumor.
mensa (n.): "altar top," 1848, Latin, literally "table," also "meal, supper," and "altar, sacrificial table," hence used in Church Latin for "upper slab of a church altar" (see mesa). With a capital M-, the name of an organization for people of IQs of 148 or more founded in England in 1946, the name chosen, according to the organization, to suggest a "round table" type group. The constellation was originally Mons Mensae "Table Mountain."
La Caille, who did so much for our knowledge of the southern heavens, formed the figure from stars under the Greater Cloud, between the poles of the equator and the ecliptic, just north of the polar Octans; the title being suggested by the fact that the Table Mountain, back of Cape Town, "which had witnessed his nightly vigils and daily toils," also was frequently capped by a cloud. [Richard Hinckley Allen, "Star Names and Their Meanings," London: 1899]
pharmacist (n.): 1811; see pharmacy + -ist. Replaced obsolete pharmacian (1720). The Latin word was pharmacopola, the Greek pharmakopoles.
Polack (n.): "Polish person," 1570s, from Polish Polak "(male) Polish person," related to Polanie "Poles," Polska "Poland," polski "Polish" (see Pole). In North American usage, "Polish immigrant, person of Polish descent" (1879) and in that context considered offensive in English. As an adjective from c. 1600.
polar (adj.): 1550s, from Middle French polaire (16c.) or directly from Medieval Latin polaris "of or pertaining to the poles," from Latin polus "an end of an axis" (see pole (n.2)). Meaning "directly opposite in character or tendency" is attested from 1832. Polar bear first recorded 1781.
Pole (n.): "inhabitant or native of Poland," 1650s, from German Pole, singular of Polen, from Polish Polanie "Poles," literally "field-dwellers," from pole "field," related to Old Church Slavonic polje "field," from PIE root *pele- (2) "flat, to spread" (see plane (n.1)).
pole (v.): "to furnish with poles," 1570s, from pole (n.1). Meaning "to push with a pole" is from 1753. Related: Poled; poling.
rood (n.): Old English rod "pole," varying from 6 to 8 yards; also "cross," especially that upon which Christ suffered; "crucifix," especially a large one; also a measure of land, properly 40 square poles or perches, from Proto-Germanic *rod- (cognates: Old Saxon ruoda "stake, pile, cross," Old Frisian rode, Middle Dutch roede, Old High German ruota, German Rute "rod"), from PIE *ret- "post" (cognates: Latin ratis "raft," retae "trees standing on the bank of a stream;" Old Church Slavonic ratiste "spear, staff;" Lithuanian rekles "scaffolding"). Probably not connected with rod.
sedan (n.): 1630s, "covered chair on poles," possibly from a southern Italian dialect derivative of Italian sede "chair" (compare Italian seggietta, 1590s; the thing itself was said to have been introduced from Naples), from Latin sedes, related to sedere "sit" (see sedentary). Since Johnson's conjecture, often derived from the town of Sedan in France, where it was said to have been made or first used, but historical evidence for this is lacking.

Introduced in England by Sir Sanders Duncombe in 1634 and first called a covered chair. "In Paris the sedan-chair man was usually an Auvergnat, in London an Irishman" ["Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1929]. Meaning "closed automobile seating four or more" first recorded 1912, American English.
stilt (n.): early 14c., "a crutch," a common Germanic word (cognates: Danish stylte, Swedish stylta, Middle Low German, Middle Dutch stelte "stilt," Old High German stelza "plow handle, crutch"), though the exact relationship of them all is unclear, from Proto-Germanic *steltijon, from PIE root *stel- "to put, stand" (see stall (n.1)). Application to "wooden poles for walking across marshy ground, etc." is from mid-15c. Meaning "one of the posts on which a building is raised from the ground" is first attested 1690s. As a type of bird with long legs, from 1831. Stilted in the figurative sense of "pompous, stuffy" is first recorded 1820.
tent (n.): c. 1300, "portable shelter of skins or coarse cloth stretched over poles," from Old French tente "tent, hanging, tapestry" (12c.), from Medieval Latin tenta "a tent," literally "something stretched out," noun use of fem. singular of Latin tentus "stretched," variant past participle of tendere "to stretch" (see tenet). The notion is of "stretching" hides over a framework. Tent caterpillar first recorded 1854, so called from the tent-like silken webs in which they live gregariously.
theology (n.): mid-14c., "the science of religion, study of God and his relationship to humanity," from Old French theologie "philosophical study of Christian doctrine; Scripture" (14c.), from Latin theologia, from Greek theologia "an account of the gods," from theologos "one discoursing on the gods," from theos "god" (see theo-) + -logos "treating of" (see -logy). Meaning "a particular system of theology" is from 1660s.
Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received. [Paul Tillich, "Systematic Theology," 1951]