Fork definition
A utensil with two or more prongs, used for eating or serving food.
noun
The point where a river, road, etc. is divided into two or more branches, or where branches join to form a river, road, etc.
noun
An implement with two or more prongs used for raising, carrying, piercing, or digging.
noun
To divide into branches; be bifurcated.
Where the road forks.
verb
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A division into branches; bifurcation.
noun
The definition of a fork is a tool with a handle and two or more prongs at the end or a division into two branches.
An example of a fork is what people stick into a piece of meat to pick it up to eat it.
An example of a fork is a dead end street with a left and a right turn.
noun
(games) An attack by one chess piece on two pieces at the same time.
noun
A bifurcation or separation into two or more branches or parts.
noun
The point at which such a bifurcation or separation occurs.
A fork in a road.
noun
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One of the branches of such a bifurcation or separation.
The right fork.
noun
To raise, carry, pitch, or pierce with a fork.
verb
To give the shape of a fork to (one's fingers, for example).
verb
(games) To launch an attack on (two chess pieces).
verb
(informal) To pay. Used with over, out, or up:
Forked over $80 for front-row seats; forked up the money owed.
verb
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To divide into two or more branches.
The river forks here.
verb
To use a fork, as in working.
verb
To turn at or travel along a fork.
verb
An instrument of greatly varying size with a handle at one end and two or more pointed prongs at the other: forks are variously used as eating utensils and for pitching hay, breaking up soil, etc.
noun
Something resembling a fork in shape.
Tuning fork.
noun
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Any of these branches.
noun
To pick up, spear, or pitch with a fork.
verb
(chess) To attack (two chessmen) simultaneously with a single chessman.
verb
A tuning fork.
noun
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.
noun
(geography) Used in the names of some river tributaries, e.g. West Fork White River and East Fork White River, joining together to form the White River of Indiana.
noun
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(figuratively) A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
noun
(chess) The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).
noun
(computer science) An event where development of some free software or open-source software is split into two or more separate projects.
noun
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To divide into two or more branches.
A road, a tree, or a stream forks.
verb
To move with a fork (as hay or food).
verb
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(computer science) To spawn a new child process in some sense duplicating the existing process.
verb
To make into the shape of a fork.
verb
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fork over
- to pay out or hand over
idiom
Idioms and Phrasal Verbs
Origin of fork
- Middle English forke digging fork from Old English forca and from Old North French forque both from Latin furca
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- From Middle English forke (“digging fork”), from Old English force, forca (“forked instrument used to torture”), from Proto-Germanic *furkǭ, *furkô (“fork”), from Latin furca (“pitchfork, forked stake", also "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. 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.
From Wiktionary
- 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 (“bolt”) (plural), Old Saxon fercal (“lock, bolt, bar”), Old Norse forkr (“pole, staff, stick”), Norwegian fork (“stick, bat”), Swedish fork (“pole”).
From Wiktionary