fork
nounverbnounverbcommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//fɔːk//
- United States//fɔɹk//
- United States/[fo̞ɹk]/
- //fo(ː)ɹk//
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.
noun
- 1
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.
- 2
Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows: 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.
- 3
Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows: 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.
- 4
Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows: A tuning fork.
- 5
A fork in the road, as follows: An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two.
- 6
figurativeA fork in the road, as follows: A decision point.
- 7
A point where a waterway, such as a river or other stream, splits and flows into two (or more) different directions.
- 8
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 thunderbolt with three forks
this fork of the river dries up during droughts
- 9
figurativeA point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
- 10
figurativeA point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths. Either of the (figurative) paths thus taken.
- 11
figurative(software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally. Any of the pieces/versions (of software, content, or data sets) thus created.
- 12
figurative(software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally. The launch of one or more separate software development efforts based upon a modified copy of an existing project, especially in free and open-source software.
- 13
figurative(software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally. The launch of one or more separate software development efforts based upon a modified copy of an existing project, especially in free and open-source software. Any of the software projects resulting from the launch of such separate software development efforts based upon a copy of the original project.
LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice.
- 14
figurative(software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally. The splitting of the coverage of a topic (within a corpus of content) into two or more pieces.
A content fork may be intentional (as from a schism about goals) or unintentional (merely from a lack of reorganizing, so far).
- 15
figurative(software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally. The splitting of the coverage of a topic (within a corpus of content) into two or more pieces. Any of the pieces/versions of content thus created.
- 16
figurative(software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally. A split in a blockchain resulting from protocol disagreements, or a branch of the blockchain resulting from such a split.
Known as a “fork”, the new version of bitcoin (dubbed Bitcoin XT) would support more transactions per hour, at the cost of increasing the amount of memory required to hold a full database of all the bitcoin transactions throughout history, known as the blockchain.
- 17
The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).
- 18
The crotch.
- 19
A forklift.
Are you qualified to drive a fork?
- 20
Either of the blades of a forklift (or, in plural, the set of blades), on which the goods to be raised are loaded.
Get those forks tilted back more or you're gonna lose that pallet!
- 21
In a bicycle or motorcycle, the portion of the frameset holding the front wheel, allowing the rider to steer and balance, also called front fork.
The fork can be equipped with a suspension on mountain bikes.
- 22
The upper front brow of a saddle bow, connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.
- 23
A set of data associated with an individual file in some file systems.
resource fork
HFS+ uses forks to store file data. Generally there are two types of forks available in HFS+, the data fork and the resource fork.
- 24
obsoleteA gallows.
They had run through all punishments, and just 'scaped the fork
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”).
verb
- 1
To divide into two or more branches or copies.
A road, a tree, or a stream forks.
- 2
To divide into two or more branches or copies. To spawn a new child process by duplicating the existing process.
A parent process forks a child process, which in turn can fork other processes.
It appears that the shell forks a copy of itself and that this copy then forks to make each of the previous processes in the pipeline.
- 3
To divide into two or more branches or copies. To launch a separate software development effort based upon a modified copy of an existing software project, especially in free and open-source software.
For various reasons, McCool's server project subsequently forked, leading to the development of the Apache Web Server.
Google forked WebKit to create the Blink project in April 2013 because they wanted to make larger-scale changes to WebKit to fit their own needs that did not align well with the WebKit project itself.
- 4
To divide into two or more branches or copies. To create a copy of a distributed version control repository.
In this model, anyone can fork an existing repository and push changes to their personal fork.
- 5
To move with a fork (as hay or food).
forking the sheaves on the high-laden cart
Brianna curbed her pang of envy as she forked her plain, low-fat, crouton-free salad niçoise into her mouth and shook her head.
- 6
To apply a fork to.
forking the soil
They delight in combing, or rather forking it, using for that purpose a large wooden fork with four diverging prongs, which answers the purpose of separating and arranging the long tangled, frizzly mass of cranial vegetation much better than any comb could do.
- 7
To kick someone in the crotch.
- 8
To shoot into blades, as corn does.
I have known them couched up a Yard thick cover’d with an Hair-cloth and ſtirred only once a day, the Maltſer being always careful to throw the frozen outſides into the middle till the Corn begin to fork and warm in the Couch; after which time if it be not laid too thin, it will not eaſily freeze.
- 9
To simultaneously attack two opposing pieces with a single attacking piece.
- 10
Also a form of fuckEuphemistic form of fuck.
They were forking each other in the back room.
noun
- 1
The bottom of a sump into which the water of a mine drains.
Etymology
Ultimately from Etymology 1, above, through use for various things with two or more branches. Attested in this sense from the 18th century.
verb
- 1
To bale a shaft dry.
Forking the water, is drawing it all out; and when it is done, they say, “the mine or the water is forked;” and “the engine is in fork.”
Forms
- plural
- forks
- past tense
- forked
- past participle
- forked
- present participle
- forking
- third person singular
- forks
fork · 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…
form · To do with shape. The shape or visible structure of a thing…formal · In accordance with established forms.formality · The state of being formal.