How to Use maypole in a Sentence

maypole

noun
Definition of maypolenext
  • For centuries, maypoles have been put up on the eve of May Day to welcome spring.
    — Fox News, 1 May 2018
  • No one knows the origins of the maypole or knows for certain why people dance around it.
    — Cassie Armstrong, OrlandoSentinel.com, 1 May 2018
  • There will be dancing around the maypole, live music and May baskets.
    — Courant Community, 17 Apr. 2018
  • With enough time, aquavit, and good food, I’ll be mixed in with a whole mess of them, dancing around the maypole under the never-setting sun.
    — Ashley Mason, Bon Appetit, 16 June 2017
  • With enough time, aquavit, and good food, I’ll be mixed in with a whole mess of them, dancing around the maypole under the never-setting sun.
    — Ashley Mason, Bon Appetit, 16 June 2017
  • That could be the tagline for Ari Aster’s terror-round-the-maypole dread-fest Midsommar, if the movie had even the remotest sense of humor about itself.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 27 June 2019
  • And no Beltane party is complete without a maypole and a massive bonfire to heat things up.
    — refinery29.com, 30 Apr. 2018
  • Or a dancer might trail more rope, like a leash held by other performers who wind it around her in maypole fashion.
    — New York Times, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Watching sickly youngsters dance around a maypole wasn’t the only feature of May Day.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 30 Apr. 2018
  • Then Cameron arrives and brings up the drug cabinet again, but Hope hustles him to the maypole to avoid that conversation with Doc.
    — Sara Netzley, EW.com, 20 July 2022
  • Fun and Games Midsummer is not complete without a maypole.
    — Michaela Bechler, Vogue, 22 June 2018
  • In the town square, people would gather to raise the Midsommarstång (maypole), a symbol of fertility, and throw a big party.
    — Ashley Mason, Bon Appetit, 16 June 2017
  • This is a party, after all, and so the adults, all hopped up on champagne, try a formal maypole dance but make a mess of it and end in a heap, all perfectly in time with Tchaikovsky’s stately music.
    — Washington Post, 28 Nov. 2019
  • Runes are all over Midsommar: embroidered on clothes, hanging on their maypole structure, painted on the walls.
    — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 5 July 2019
  • Another Swedish tradition includes hopping around the maypole like frogs and singing a special tune.
    — Michaela Bechler, Vogue, 22 June 2018
  • Their traditions include dancing around a maypole -- a symbol which some view as phallic.
    — Forrest Brown, CNN, 20 June 2022
  • There was something merry in all this going around, akin perhaps to dancing around the maypole, albeit in multi-ton vehicles that can cause injury or death.
    — New York Times, 20 Nov. 2021
  • In Medieval England, May Day celebrations centered on the maypole, which is a pole made from wood, decorated with streamers, which are held by dancers circling the pole.
    — Cnn Editorial Research, CNN, 18 Apr. 2021
  • Attractions include a maypole dance, butterfly house, live music, booths and more.
    — Marla Jo Fisher, Orange County Register, 26 May 2017
  • Not so Swedes, who traditionally celebrate the change of season, and light, with dancing around a maypole, herring, schnapps, and strawberry cake.
    — Vogue, 28 June 2021
  • Depending on the species, the arrays can take the form of an avenue or maypole or even a stage to perform his enthusiastic, and hopefully alluring, dance movements for the females.
    — Discover Magazine, 8 Nov. 2011
  • That afternoon outside the school, people will decorate a traditional maypole before joining hands for ring dances around the pole.
    — Jay Jones, chicagotribune.com, 1 June 2018
  • Details — stools, baskets of flowers, a maypole but, above all, steps and patterns — become fragrant, musical, piquant.
    — Alastair MacAulay, New York Times, 7 Feb. 2016
  • By the time a few dozen women are dancing in circles around a maypole, even the camerawork — with its sinuous flow and contrapuntal push-ins and pullouts — seems to be tightening its grip on the visitors.
    — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 2 July 2019
  • In Sweden, residents celebrate the summer solstice by dancing around a maypole and feasting on herrings.
    — oregonlive.com, 20 June 2019
  • Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, have watched their maypole dance for more than 20 years.
    — Sarah Scoles, Discover Magazine, 6 Jan. 2019
  • The painting commemorates a Christian sacrament, but it is framed with Native dancers and an Indigenous sport where men suspended on ropes from their ankles or waists whirl around a tall wooden post — sort of an extreme maypole.
    — Los Angeles Times, 20 June 2022
  • Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar served as a glitzy maypole in a cha cha production number with more energetic dancers swirling about him.
    — Hal Boedeker, OrlandoSentinel.com, 1 May 2018
  • Models danced with umbrellas, ran, played soccer, tied ribbons around a multicolored maypole and, at the end, embarked on an all-out park carnival, replete with a musical band and drummers.
    — Washington Post, 20 June 2019
  • Rudi and Elke erected a homemade maypole (a tall wooden pole traditionally used in European folk festivals) in their yard in Bavaria, topped with a picture of their family.
    — Francesca Street, CNN, 17 Jan. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'maypole.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: