spoke
nounverbverbcommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//spəʊk//
- United States//spoʊk//
A support structure that connects the axle or the hub of a wheel to the rim.
noun
- 1
A support structure that connects the axle or the hub of a wheel to the rim.
The wheels were at first copies of a light hand-cart wheel, the wood spokes were brought together by tapering the spoke ends and wedging them together at the nave or hub and inserting the other ends in slots in the felloe or wood rim.
- 2
A projecting handle of a steering wheel.
- 3
A rung of a ladder.
- 4
A stick inserted into the wheel of a vehicle to keep the wheel from turning.
- 5
One of the outlying points in a hub-and-spoke model of transportation.
Etymology
From Middle English spoke, from Old English spāca, from Proto-West Germanic *spaikā, from Proto-Germanic *spaikō. Compare Scots spaik (“spoke”), Dutch spaak and English spike.
verb
- 1
To furnish (a wheel) with spokes.
verb
- 1
Also a form of speaksimple past of speak
- 2
Also a form of speakarchaicpast participle of speak
Cleo. Hye thee againe, / I haue ſpoke already, and it is provided.
Thoſe who have ſpoke in its Favour have allowed, that it is defective, with regard to the preſent Circumſtances of Europe,[…]
I should have spoke to him there and then, seen he was in the mood to do something stupid.
Etymology
From Middle English speke, spake, spoke, spak, spek, speken, spoken, from Old English spæc, specen.
Forms
- plural
- spokes
- past tense
- spoked
- past participle
- spoked
- present participle
- spoking
- third person singular
- spokes
spoke · A support structure that connects the axle or the hub of a wheel to the rim.
spoken · Expressed in speech.spokesman · One who speaks as the voice of another person or a group of…sponge · Any of various marine invertebrates of the phylum Porifera,…