pollard

From poll (“head, scalp”) +‎ -ard. The coin sense derives from the original penny's uncrowned obverse bust, as opposed to the laurel-wreathed form appearing on the rosary. The verb derives from the noun.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɒl.əd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑ.lɚd/

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pollard (plural pollards)

1. (often attributive) A pruned tree; the wood of such trees.
   • 1857, Pisistratus Caxton [pseudonym; Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter I, in What will He Do with It? (Collection of British Authors; CCCCVII), Tauchnitz edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, →OCLC, book II, page 140:

     The enclosure was indeed little beyond that of a good-sized paddock – its boundaries were visible on every side – but swelling uplands, covered with massy foliage sloped down to its wild irregular turf soil – soil poor for pasturage, but pleasant to the eye; with dell and dingle, bosks of fantastic pollards – dotted oaks of vast growth – here and there a weird hollow thorn-tree – patches of fern and gorse.

   • 1869, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, “Chapter 65”, in Lorna Doone:

     Only a little pollard hedge kept us from their blood-shot eyes.

   • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 98:

     Nothing was to be seen save flat meadows, cows feeding unconcernedly for the most part, and silvery pollard willows motionless in the warm sunlight.

   • 1903, Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Part III, Chapter Third, page 116

     And at this place there was a long, straight causeway, with two long rows of pollard willows, one upon either hand.

2. A buck deer that has shed its antlers.
3. A hornless variety of domestic animal, such as cattle or goats.
4. (obsolete, rare) A European chub (Squalius cephalus, syn. Leuciscus cephalus), a kind of fish.
5. (now Australia) A fine grade of bran including some flour. The fine cell layer between bran layers and endosperm, used for animal feed.
6. (numismatics, historical) A 13th-century European coin minted as a debased counterfeit of the sterling silver penny of Edward I of England, at first legally accepted as a halfpenny and then outlawed.

   Coordinate terms: crockard, rosary, mitre, leonine, scalding, steeping, eagle

pollard (third-person singular simple present pollards, present participle pollarding, simple past and past participle pollarded)

1. (horticulture) To prune a tree heavily, cutting branches back to the trunk, so that it produces dense new growth.
   • 1910, Edward Morgan Forster, chapter 11, in Howards End:

     I didn't know one could pollard elms. I thought one only pollarded willows.

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 118:

     As well as coppicing, other trees were pollarded, or lopped about 6 ft up the trunk so that the resulting growth was beyond the reach of grazing animals. Pollarding lengthens the life of trees, and the frequently made estimate '1,000 years old' could well be true of some sturdy old trunks.

   • 2011, Edward F. Gilman, An Illustrated Guide to Pruning, 3rd edition, Clifton Park, N.Y.: Delmar, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 411:

     Cutting back to the same position annually is usually referred to as pollarding; cutting nearly to the ground is usually called stooling. Both are good methods of controlling height and maintaining vigor on plants that would normally grow to a large size.

   • 2019, Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me, Jonathan Cape, page 287:

     I walked up the path, passing under a heavily pollarded oak.

• pollard on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pollarding on Wikipedia.Wikipedia