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Added 3 October 2026

pose

/poʊz/ noun

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about pose at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

Affected manners intended to impress others.
don't put on airs with me
A posture assumed by models for photographic or artistic purposes.
A deliberate pretense or exaggerated display.

verb

Introduce.
This poses an interesting question
Assume a posture as for artistic purposes.
We don't know the woman who posed for Leonardo so often
Pretend to be someone you are not; sometimes with fraudulent intentions.
She posed as the Czar's daughter

Origin

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”).

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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