fork
Meanings
- Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows:
- A utensil with spikes used to put solid food into the mouth, or to hold food down while cutting, or for serving food.
- Any of several types of pronged tools for use on farms, in fields, or in the garden or lawn, such as a smaller hand fork for weeding or a larger one for turning over the soil.
- Such a pronged tool having a long straight handle, generally for two-handed use, as used for digging, lifting, mucking, pitching, etc.
- A tuning fork.
- A fork in the road, as follows:
- An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two.
- A decision point.
- A point where a waterway, such as a river or other stream, splits and flows into two (or more) different directions.
- One of the parts into which anything is furcated or divided; a prong; a branch of a stream, a road, etc.; a barbed point, as of an arrow.
- A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
- Either of the (figurative) paths thus taken.
- To divide into two or more branches or copies.
- To spawn a new child process by duplicating the existing process.
- To launch a separate software development effort based upon a modified copy of an existing software project, especially in free and open-source software.
- To create a copy of a distributed version control repository.
- To move with a fork (as hay or food).
- To kick someone in the crotch.
- To shoot into blades, as corn does.
- To simultaneously attack two opposing pieces with a single attacking piece.
- Euphemistic form of fuck.
- The bottom of a sump into which the water of a mine drains.
- To bale a shaft dry.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English forke (“digging fork”), from Old English force, forca (“forked instrument used to torture”), from Proto-West Germanic *furkō (“fork”), from Latin furca (“pitchfork, forked stake; gallows, beam, stake, support post, yoke”), of uncertain origin. The Middle English word was later reinforced by Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French forque (= Old French forche whence French fourche), also from the Latin. Doublet of fourche and furcate. Cognate also with North Frisian forck (“fork”), Dutch vork (“fork”), Danish fork (“fork”), German Forke (“pitchfork”). Displaced native gafol, ġeafel, ġeafle (“fork”), from Old English. In its primary sense of “fork”, Latin furca appears to be derived from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰerk(ʷ)-, *ǵʰerg(ʷ)- (“fork”), although the development of the -c- is difficult to explain. In other senses this derivation is unlikely. For these, perhaps it is connected to Proto-Germanic *furkaz, *firkalaz (“stake, stick, pole, post”), from Proto-Indo-European *perg- (“pole, post”). If so, this would relate the word to Old English forclas pl (“bolt”), Old Saxon ferkal (“lock, bolt, bar”), Old Norse forkr (“pole, staff, stick”), Norwegian fork (“stick, bat”), Swedish fork (“pole”).