Yes, in a multithreaded scenario it's possible to think of poll() and epoll() primarily as an alternative to pthread_cond_timedwait(). These functions are not

Yes, in a multithreaded scenario it's possible to think of poll() and epoll() primarily as an alternative to pthread_cond_timedwait(). These functions are not about 'event dispatching' so much as they are about putting the current thread to sleep until something of interest might have occurred. Using poll() or epoll() means that the thread gets to wake up on file descriptor events in addition to intrathread signals, and epoll() seems to work fine in this regard.