poles apart
1
5.6
- idiom
- Informal
:
totalmente opuestos
- In many ways, we were poles apart, yet, like magnets, we couldn't resist each other.
Examples
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And yet both were poles apart in their conduct and mannerisms in their professional and personal lives.
Blog text (24) -
Either way, the overriding message of the election is likely to be that while the two parties are more than ever poles apart, the country itself remains closely divided.
Blog text (23) -
Both of us thinking we're poles apart from each other.
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What you mean and what Jim thinks you mean may be poles apart.
Blog text (25) -
As concerns Malcolm and Martin, I watched two men, coming from unimaginably different backgrounds, whose positions, originally, were poles apart, driven closer and closer together.
-
Britain and the U.S.A. may be an ocean apart and divided by an (almost) common language, but for their part, French specialists of English and American culture often still seem poles apart.
Academic text (1994) -
Inseparable as children, Fiona and Elizabeth were only four months apart in age, though poles apart in temperament.
Fiction book (2000) -
But the two sides remain poles apart, notwithstanding their conciliatory postures, and a resolution, even a temporary one, may not emerge for quite some time.
Blog text (23) -
If an interested outsider—a journalist, perhaps, or a legislator—were to read such material in a press release, he or she might understandably conclude that the arts education programs of the two organizations were quite similar, though they are, in fact, poles apart.
Academic text (1993) -
Despite their close friendship, their opinions on the matter are poles apart.
Synonyms
11
7.7
So different that people cannot agree
9
4.5
People or things that are very different and have nothing important in common
4
3.7
Clearly different from one another in a way you notice
Very different from each other in important ways
Antonyms
How Different
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'poles' (ends or opposites) with 'apart' (separated), so the image of opposite extremes being far from each other yields the meaning 'completely different' and is fairly inferable from the parts. However, understanding relies on the metaphorical sense of 'pole' as an extreme or opposite—knowledge some B1 learners may lack—so the relation is only partially predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Poles apart may come from the two ends of the Earth: the poles (North and South) are very far apart and almost opposite. So when people say something is 'completely different or opposed', they mean the two things are as far from each other as those poles.