the place where people vote
"She waited patiently outside the local polls to cast her ballot after work."
plural of poll
"The exit polls suggested a landslide victory for the incumbent candidate."
In plain English: Polls are surveys where people vote on their opinions about things.
"The recent polls show that the leading candidate is far ahead in the race."
Usage: Use "polls" to refer collectively to voting booths or election results when discussing an event where multiple people vote. Do not use it to mean individual opinions unless you are specifically summarizing the aggregate data from those votes.
Third-person singular simple present indicative form of poll
"The candidate who leads in the polls wins the primary election."
In plain English: To poll means to ask people questions to find out what they think about something.
"The candidate visited several cities to poll voters about their opinions on the new tax plan."
Usage: Use "polls" to describe when a person or entity regularly surveys public opinion or votes in an election. It is the third-person form used specifically with subjects like he, she, it, or singular nouns such as a candidate or a newspaper.
Derived from Old French pol (head) via Latin pola, the term originally referred to cutting off hair or shaving the head. In modern usage, it evolved through the sense of counting votes by tallying heads in a crowd.