Etymology Compound of May + pole, so called in reference to its use on May Day.
1
A pole, garlanded with streamers held by people who dance around it to celebrate May Day.
How would you like the maypole decorated?
The maypole, the focal point of many traditional spring games and festivities, is believed to be a relic of ancient phallic worship.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 149:
2 more examples
The seemingly innocent Maypole is a relic of witchcraft.1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 93:
At Ickwell Green, in Bedfordshire, there is a permanent maypole. There, the May Queen is accompanied by moggies (raggedly dressed women) carrying besoms - birch-twig brooms.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 263:
Biology, Natural sciences, Ornithology A maypole-like structure of sticks placed about a sapling in the bowers of certain species of bowerbird.
The male Golden Bowerbird is a beautiful bird that builds one of the greatest structures in the natural world, a maypole up to three metres tall constructed of sticks and festooned with decorative clusters of flowers and lichens.2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 212:
and now, disengag'd from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ'd, it must have belong'd to a young giant.1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC: