pool

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an organization of people or resources that can be shared

   a car pool

2. 2
   noun

   something resembling a pool of liquid

   They stood in a pool of light.

3. 3
   noun

   any communal combination of funds

   everyone contributed to the pool

4. 4
   verb

   combine into a common fund

   We pooled resources

5. 5
   noun

   A small and rather deep area of (usually) fresh water, as one supplied by a spring, or occurring in the course of a stream or river; a reservoir for water.

   the pools of Solomon

6. 6
   noun

   A small amount of liquid on a surface.

   a pool of blood

7. 7
   noun

   A localized glow of light.

   He walked slowly, passing through one pool of light after another, his shadow running tall across the fronts of the barber shop, the Western Auto, the video-rental shop.

8. 8
   noun

   A supply of resources.

   The 4-BEP and 4-CEP stock is maintained in a common pool for both Chatham and South Eastern fast main-line services.

Etymology

From Middle English pool, pole, pol, from Old English pōl (“pool”), from Proto-West Germanic pōl, from Proto-Germanic *pōlaz (“pool, pond”), from Proto-Indo-European *bōlos (“bog, marsh”). Cognate with Scots puil (“pool”), Saterland Frisian Pol (“pool”), West Frisian poel (“pool”), Dutch poel (“pool”), German Low German Pohl, Pool, Pul (“pool”), German Pfuhl (“quagmire, mudhole”), Danish pøl (“puddle”), Swedish pöl (“puddle, pool”), Icelandic pollur (“puddle”), Lithuanian bala (“puddle”), Latvian bala (“a muddly, treeless depression”), Russian боло́то (bolóto, “swamp, bog, marsh”). For the mea…