Other forms: polls
A poll is a count of public opinion, usually taken before an election. An opinion poll, the latest poll, poll of polls.
Polls sample a few thousand people and infer the whole population, which works when the sample is representative and fails visibly when it is not. Margin of error is usually about three per cent and is routinely ignored. The polls also means the polling stations: go to the polls. Note pollster; exit poll, taken as people leave; and that poll originally meant the head, which is why a poll tax is a tax per person.
1nounpollA count of public opinion.
“A new poll shows that most people support the ban on smoking in parks.”
2nounvotingThe voting itself, or the places it happens.
“Voters go to the polls next Thursday to elect a new mayor.”
poll is a count of opinion or votes.
Middle Dutch pol meant the top of the head. Counting heads gave both the poll tax and the polling of opinion, and pollard, a tree cut back at the top, is the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*bolno-
Proto-Germanic
*pullaz — round object, head, top
Proto-West Germanic
*poll
Middle Dutch
pol
Middle English
pol
English, today
poll
Built from
From Middle English pol, polle "scalp, pate", from or cognate with Middle Dutch pol, pole, polle (“top, summit; head”), from Proto-West Germanic poll, from Proto-Germanic pullaz (“round object, head, top”), from Proto-Indo-European bolno-, bōwl- (“orb, round object, bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European bew- (“to blow, swell”). Akin to Scots pow (“head, crown, scalp, skull”), stq pol (“round, full, brimming”), German Low German Polle, Poll (“round object, ball”), German Low German Poller (“head, tree-top, bulb”), Danish puld (“crown of a hat”), Swedish - dialectal pull (“head”). Meaning "collection of votes" is first recorded 1625, from the notion of "counting heads".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA