Meaning & use
telegraph pole
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A tall wooden post along a road or railway that holds up overhead cables for phone, electricity or similar lines.
Grammar: Countable: a telegraph pole, rows of telegraph poles.
Patterns
- a telegraph pole beside something
The car skidded and hit a telegraph pole on the country road.
A row of telegraph poles ran alongside the railway.
Birds lined up along the wire between two telegraph poles.
Word forms
| plural | telegraph poles |
|---|
Common combinations
- wooden telegraph pole
- A wooden telegraph pole leaned beside the lane.
- crash into a telegraph pole
- The van crashed into a telegraph pole in the fog.
- climb a telegraph pole
- The engineer climbed a telegraph pole to fix the cable.
- line of telegraph poles
- A line of telegraph poles stretched across the plain.
Synonyms and how they differ
- utility pole
- Utility pole is the standard American term for the same structure and is a more accurate name for poles that carry power.
- telephone pole
- Telephone pole is common in American speech and emphasizes phone lines, whereas telegraph pole is the British expression.
- lamp post
- A lamp post holds a street light rather than overhead cables, so it is a different kind of pole.
Word family
Commonly confused: telegraph pole or lamp post?
telegraph pole vs lamp post
A lamp post carries a street lamp, while a telegraph pole carries overhead cables.
Practice
The driver lost control on the icy road and hit a ___ at the roadside.
Choose one answer.
A telegraph pole is a tall roadside post holding cables. The other poles are not normally found at the side of a road.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “telegraph pole”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.