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hole

- 11 dictionary results

hole

  [hohl] noun, verb, holed, hol⋅ing.
Use hole in a Sentence
–noun
1. an opening through something; gap; aperture: a hole in the roof; a hole in my sock.
2. a hollow place in a solid body or mass; a cavity: a hole in the ground.
3. the excavated habitation of an animal; burrow.
4. a small, dingy, or shabby place: I couldn't live in a hole like that.
5. a place of solitary confinement; dungeon.
6. an embarrassing position or predicament: to find oneself in a hole.
7. a cove or small harbor.
8. a fault or flaw: They found serious holes in his reasoning.
9. a deep, still place in a stream: a swimming hole.
10. Sports.
a. a small cavity, into which a marble, ball, or the like is to be played.
b. a score made by so playing.
11. Golf.
a. the circular opening in a green into which the ball is to be played.
b. a part of a golf course from a tee to the hole corresponding to it, including fairway, rough, and hazards.
c. the number of strokes taken to hit the ball from a tee into the hole corresponding to it.
12. Informal. opening; slot: The radio program was scheduled for the p.m. hole. We need an experienced person to fill a hole in our accounting department.
13. Metalworking. (in wire drawing) one reduction of a section.
14. Electronics. a mobile vacancy in the electronic structure of a semiconductor that acts as a positive charge carrier and has equivalent mass.
15. Aeronautics. an air pocket that causes a plane or other aircraft to drop suddenly.
–verb (used with object)
16. to make a hole or holes in.
17. to put or drive into a hole.
18. Golf. to hit the ball into (a hole).
19. to bore (a tunnel, passage, etc.).
–verb (used without object)
20. to make a hole or holes.
—Verb phrases
21. hole out, Golf. to strike the ball into a hole: He holed out in five, one over par.
22. hole up,
a. to go into a hole; retire for the winter, as a hibernating animal.
b. to hide, as from pursuers, the police, etc.: The police think the bank robbers are holed up in Chicago.
—Idioms
23. burn a hole in one's pocket, to urge one to spend money quickly: His inheritance was burning a hole in his pocket.
24. hole in the wall, a small or confining place, esp. one that is dingy, shabby, or out-of-the-way: Their first shop was a real hole in the wall.
25. in a or the hole,
a. in debt; in straitened circumstances: After Christmas I am always in the hole for at least a month.
b. Baseball, Softball. pitching or batting with the count of balls or balls and strikes to one's disadvantage, esp. batting with a count of two strikes and one ball or none.
c. Stud Poker. being the card or one of the cards dealt face down in the first round: a king in the hole.
26. make a hole in, to take a large part of: A large bill from the dentist made a hole in her savings.
27. pick a hole or holes in, to find a fault or flaw in: As soon as I presented my argument, he began to pick holes in it.
Origin:
bef. 900; ME; OE hol hole, cave, orig. neut. of hol (adj.) hollow; c. G hohl hollow

Related forms:
holeless, adjective
holey, adjective

Synonyms:
1, 2. pit, hollow, concavity. Hole, cavity, excavation refer to a hollow place in anything. Hole is the common word for this idea: a hole in turf. Cavity is a more formal or scientific term for a hollow within the body or in a substance, whether with or without a passage outward: a cavity in a tooth; the cranial cavity. An excavation is an extended hole made by digging out or removing material: an excavation before the construction of a building. 3. den, cave; lair, retreat. 4. hovel, shack.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To hole
hole   (hōl)   
n.  
  1. A hollowed place in something solid; a cavity or pit: dug a hole in the ground with a shovel.
    1. An opening or perforation: a hole in the clouds; had a hole in the elbow of my sweater.
    2. Sports An opening in a defensive formation, such as the area of a baseball infield between two adjacent fielders.
    3. A fault or flaw: There are holes in your argument.
    4. The small pit lined with a cup into which a golf ball must be hit.
    5. One of the divisions of a golf course, from tee to cup.
  3. A deep place in a body of water.
  4. An animal's hollowed-out habitation, such as a burrow.
  5. An ugly, squalid, or depressing dwelling.
  6. A deep or isolated place of confinement; a dungeon.
  7. An awkward situation; a predicament.
  8. Sports
    1. The small pit lined with a cup into which a golf ball must be hit.
    2. One of the divisions of a golf course, from tee to cup.
  9. Physics A vacant position in a crystal left by the absence of an electron, especially a position in a semiconductor that acts as a carrier of positive electric charge. Also called electron hole.
v.   holed, hol·ing, holes

v.   tr.
  1. To put a hole in.
  2. To put or propel into a hole.
v.   intr.
To make a hole in something.
Phrasal Verbs:
hole out Sports
To hit a golf ball into the hole.
hole up
  1. To hibernate in or as if in a hole.
  2. Informal To take refuge in or as if in a hideout.
Phrasal Verb(s):
hole out Sports To hit a golf ball into the hole.
hole up
  1. To hibernate in or as if in a hole.
  2. Informal To take refuge in or as if in a hideout.

Idiom(s):
in the hole
  1. Having a score below zero.
  2. In debt.
  3. At a disadvantage.

[Middle English, from Old English hol; see kel-1 in Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Hole

Hole\ (h[=o]l), a. Whole. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

Hole

Hole\, n. [OE. hol, hole, AS. hol, hole, cavern, from hol, a., hollow; akin to D. hol, OHG. hol, G. hohl, Dan. huul hollow, hul hole, Sw. h[*a]l, Icel. hola; prob. from the root of AS. helan to conceal. See Hele, Hell, and cf. Hold of a ship.]

1. A hollow place or cavity; an excavation; a pit; an opening in or through a solid body, a fabric, etc.; a perforation; a rent; a fissure.

The holes where eyes should be. --Shak.

The blind walls Were full of chinks and holes. --Tennyson.

The priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid. --2 Kings xii. 9.

2. An excavation in the ground, made by an animal to live in, or a natural cavity inhabited by an animal; hence, a low, narrow, or dark lodging or place; a mean habitation. --Dryden.

The foxes have holes, . . . but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. --Luke ix. 58.

Syn: Hollow; concavity; aperture; rent; fissure; crevice; orifice; interstice; perforation; excavation; pit; cave; den; cell.

Hole and corner, clandestine, underhand. [Colloq.] "The wretched trickery of hole and corner buffery." --Dickens.

Hole board (Fancy Weaving), a board having holes through which cords pass which lift certain warp threads; -- called also compass board.

Hole

Hole\, v. t. [AS. holian. See Hole, n.]

1. To cut, dig, or bore a hole or holes in; as, to hole a post for the insertion of rails or bars. --Chapman.

2. To drive into a hole, as an animal, or a billiard ball.

Hole

Hole\, v. i. To go or get into a hole. --B. Jonson.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : hole
Spanish: agujero,
German: das Loch,
Japanese: 穴
More Translations »

hole

n. A region in an otherwise flat entity which is not actually present. For example, some Unix filesystems can store large files with holes so that unused regions of the file are never actually stored on disk. (In techspeak, these are referred to as `sparse' files.) As another example, the region of memory in IBM PCs reserved for memory-mapped I/O devices which may not actually be present is called `the I/O hole', since memory-management systems must skip over this area when filling user requests for memory.
Jargon File 4.2.0
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hole 
O.E. hol "orifice, hollow place," from P.Gmc. *khulaz (cf. O.Fris., O.H.G. hol, M.Du. hool, O.N. holr, Ger. hohl "hollow," Goth. us-hulon "to hollow out"), from PIE base *kel- (see cell). As a contemptuous word for "small dingy lodging or abode" it is attested from 1616. Meaning "a fix, scrape, mess" is from 1760. Obscene slang use for "vulva" is implied from 1340. Hole in the wall "small and unpretentious place" is from 1822; to hole up first recorded 1875. To need (something) like a hole in the head, applied to something useless, first recorded 1951, ptobably a transl. of a Yiddish expression, cf. ich darf es vi a loch in kop.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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hole   (hōl)  Pronunciation Key 
A gap, usually the valence band of an insulator or semiconductor, that would normally be filled with one electron. If an electron accelerated by a voltage moves into a gap, it leaves a gap behind it, and in this way the hole itself appears to move through the substance. Even though holes are in fact the absence of a negatively charged particle (an electron), they can be treated theoretically as positively charged particles, whose motion gives rise to electric current.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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hole electronics
The absence of an electron in a semiconductor material. In the electron model, a hole can be thought of as an incomplete outer electron shell in a doping substance. Holes can also be thought of as positive charge carriers; while this is in a sense a fiction, it is a useful abstraction.
(1995-10-06)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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hole

In addition to the idioms beginning with hole, also see ace in the hole; black hole; in a bind (hole); in the hole; money burns a hole in one's pocket; need like a hole in the head; pick holes in; square peg in a round hole.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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