fork

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.

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”).

• IPA^(key): /fɔːɹk/

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  "a fork"

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• Rhymes: -ɔː(r)k

fork (plural forks)

1. A pronged tool having a long straight handle, used for digging, lifting, throwing etc.

   Synonym: pitchfork

2. (obsolete) A gallows.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bishop Joseph Butler to this entry?)

3. A utensil with spikes used to put solid food into the mouth, or to hold food down while cutting.
4. A tuning fork.
5. An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two.
   • When you come to a fork in the road, take it - Yogi Berra
6. 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.
   • Addison

     a thunderbolt with three forks.

7. A point where a waterway, such as a river, splits and goes two (or more) different directions.
8. (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
9. (figuratively) A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
10. (chess) The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).
11. (computer science) A splitting-up of an existing process into itself and a child process executing parts of the same program.
12. (software) An event where development of some free software or open-source software is split into two or more separate projects.
13. (software) The, or one of the, software project(s) that underwent changes in such an event; a software project split off from a main project.

    LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice.

14. (cryptocurrency, by extension) A split in a blockchain resulting from protocol disagreements, or a branch of the blockchain resulting from such a split.
15. (Britain) Crotch.
16. (colloquial) A forklift.
    • Are you qualified to drive a fork?
17. The individual blades of a forklift.
18. (cycling) In a bicycle, the portion of the frameset holding the front wheel, allowing the rider to steer and balance.

    The fork can be equipped with a suspension on mountain bikes.

• denture
• trident, a three-pronged spear somewhat resembling a pitchfork

• Sranan Tongo: forku
• → Dutch: fork
• → Japanese: フォーク (fōku)
• → Kannada: ಫೋರ್ಕ್ (phōrk)
• → Korean: 포크 (pokeu)
• → Maori: paoka
• → Tamil: போர்க் (pōrk)
• → Telugu: ఫోర్క్ (phōrk)

fork (third-person singular simple present forks, present participle forking, simple past and past participle forked)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To divide into two or more branches.

   A road, a tree, or a stream forks.

2. (transitive) To move with a fork (as hay or food).
   • Prof. Wilson

     forking the sheaves on the high-laden cart

3. (computer science) To spawn a new child process in some sense duplicating the existing process.
4. (computer science) To split a (software) project into several projects.
5. (computer science) To split a (software) distributed version control repository
6. (Britain) To kick someone in the crotch.
7. To shoot into blades, as corn does.
   • Mortimer

     The corn beginneth to fork.

8. Euphemistic form of fuck.

• (computer science: spawn a new child process): fork bomb
• fork off
• fork out
• fork over

• knife
• spoon

• Korf

From Old Norse forkr (“boathook”), from Latin furca (“fork, pitchfork”).

• IPA^(key): /fɔrk/, [fɒːɡ̊]

fork c (singular definite forken, plural indefinite forke)

1. (two-pronged) fork, pitchfork

From English fork in the computer science sense. Doublet of vork (“fork”).

• IPA^(key): /fɔrk/

fork f (plural forks, diminutive forkje n)

1. (computer science) A fork, splitting-up of an existing process into itself and a child process executing parts of the same program.

• afsplitsing

• korf

fork

1. Alternative form of forke