totem pole

1. 1.

   a tribal emblem consisting of a pillar carved and painted with totemic figures; erected by Indian tribes of the northwest Pacific coast

   Broadercolumnemblem

Questions about totem pole

What does totem pole mean?

totem pole means "a tribal emblem consisting of a pillar carved and painted with totemic figures; erected by Indian tribes of the northwest Pacific coast".

Is totem pole a common word?

totem pole is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.