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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pose.

Common cold, head cold; catarrh.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/poʊz/General-American/pəʊz/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Common cold, head cold; catarrh.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English pose, from Old English ġeposu pl (“cold in the head; catarrh”, literally “(the) sneezes; (the) snorts”), from Old English pos, ġepos (“sneeze, snort”), from Proto-West Germanic *pos, from Proto-Germanic *pusą (“sneeze, snort”), from Proto-Germanic *pusōną, *pusjaną (“to snort, blow”), from *pus- (“to blow, breathe hard”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”). Compare Low German pusten (“to blow, puff”), German dialectal pfausen (“to sneeze, snort”), Norwegian dialectal pysa (“to blow”).

verb/poʊz/General-American/pəʊz/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To place in an attitude or fixed position, for the sake of effect.

    transitive
    To pose a model for a picture.
  2. To ask; to set (a test, quiz, riddle, etc.).

    transitive
  3. To constitute (a danger, a threat, a risk, etc.).

    transitive
  4. To falsely impersonate (another person or occupation) primarily for the purpose of accomplishing something or reaching a goal.

    transitive
  5. To assume or maintain a pose; to strike an attitude.

    intransitive
  6. To behave affectedly in order to attract interest or admiration.

    intransitive
  7. To interrogate; to question.

    obsolete · transitive
  8. To question with a view to puzzling; to embarrass by questioning or scrutiny; to bring to a stand.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English posen, from Old French poser (“to put, place, stell, settle, lodge”), from Vulgar Latin pausāre (“to blin, cease, pause”), from Latin pausa (“pause”), from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis); influenced by Latin pōnere. Doublet of pause.

noun/poʊz/General-American/pəʊz/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Position, posture, arrangement (especially of the human body).

    Please adopt a more graceful pose for my camera.
  2. Affectation.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English posen, from Old French poser (“to put, place, stell, settle, lodge”), from Vulgar Latin pausāre (“to blin, cease, pause”), from Latin pausa (“pause”), from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis); influenced by Latin pōnere. Doublet of pause.

verb/poʊz/General-American/pəʊz/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To ask (someone) questions; to interrogate.

    obsolete
  2. to puzzle, non-plus, or embarrass with difficult questions.

    archaic
  3. To perplex or confuse (someone).

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English posen, a combination of aphetic forms of Middle English aposen and opposen. More at appose, oppose.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.