pool

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A game of chance, resembling a lottery, in which the contestants put staked money into a common fund that is later paid to the winner.
• noun A fund containing all the money bet in a game of chance or on the outcome of an event.
• noun A supply, as of vehicles or workers, available for use by a group.
• noun A group of journalists who cover an event and then by agreement share their reports with participating news media.
• noun A mutual fund established by a group of stockholders for speculating in or manipulating prices of securities.
• noun The persons or parties participating in such a fund.
• noun A grouping of assets, such as mortgages, that serves as a basis for the issuing of securities.
• noun An agreement between competing business concerns to establish controls over production, market, and prices for common profit.
• noun Any of several games played on a six-pocket billiards table usually with 15 object balls and a cue ball.
• intransitive verb To put into a pool, as for common use.
• intransitive verb To join or form a pool.
• noun A small body of still water.
• noun An accumulation of standing liquid; a puddle.
• noun A deep or still place in a stream.
• noun A swimming pool.
• noun An underground accumulation of petroleum or gas in porous sedimentary rock.
• intransitive verb To form pools or a pool.
• intransitive verb To accumulate in a body part.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To put into one common fund or stock for the purpose of dividing or redistributing in certain proportions; make into a common fund: as, to pool interests.
• To form a pool; make common cause in some matter.
• noun A Middle English form of pole.
• In quarrying, to make a hole in (rock) for inserting a wedge; also, to undermine (coal) to cause (it) to fall.
• To form pools, as water; stagnate.
• noun A small body of standing water; a small pond.
• noun A part of a small stream where the bed suddenly deepens and broadens, forming a relatively still, deep, and wide stretch of water.
• noun In Pennsylvania, on some of the rivers of the mining regions, a stretch of water lying between two river-dams.
• noun Hence— The country adjacent to such pools.
• noun A measure of work in slating, or covering houses with slate, equal to 168 square feet in all, or to 84 square feet on each side of the roof.
• noun In decorative art, a rounded depression, small and short in comparison with its width. Compare fluting.
• noun The stakes in certain games of cards, billiards, etc.
• noun A game played on a billiard-table with six pockets by two or more persons.
• noun In horse-racing, ball-games, etc., the combination of a number of persons, each staking a sum of money on the success of a horse in a race, a contestant in a game, etc., the money to be divided among the successful betters according to the amount put in by each; also, the money so staked.
• noun In rifle-shooting, firing for prizes on the principle that every competitor pays a certain sum for every shot, and the proceeds after a certain deduction are divided among the successful competitors.
• noun A set of players, as at the game of quadrille or comet; also, one of the counters used in such games.
• noun A combination intended by concert of action to make or control changes in market rates.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A small and rather deep collection of (usually) fresh water, as one supplied by a spring, or occurring in the course of a stream; a reservoir for water.
• noun A small body of standing or stagnant water; a puddle.
• intransitive verb To combine or contribute with others, as for a commercial, speculative, or gambling transaction.
• transitive verb To put together; to contribute to a common fund, on the basis of a mutual division of profits or losses; to make a common interest of.
• noun The stake played for in certain games of cards, billiards, etc.; an aggregated stake to which each player has contributed a snare; also, the receptacle for the stakes.
• noun A game at billiards, in which each of the players stakes a certain sum, the winner taking the whole; also, in public billiard rooms, a game in which the loser pays the entrance fee for all who engage in the game; a game of skill in pocketing the balls on a pool table.
• noun In rifle shooting, a contest in which each competitor pays a certain sum for every shot he makes, the net proceeds being divided among the winners.
• noun Any gambling or commercial venture in which several persons join.
• noun A combination of persons contributing money to be used for the purpose of increasing or depressing the market price of stocks, grain, or other commodities; also, the aggregate of the sums so contributed
• noun (Railroads) A mutual arrangement between competing lines, by which the receipts of all are aggregated, and then distributed pro rata according to agreement.
• noun (Law) An aggregation of properties or rights, belonging to different people in a community, in a common fund, to be charged with common liabilities.
• noun a variety of the game of billiards in which small wooden pins are set up to be knocked down by the balls.