Pronged eating utensil — a fork (sense 1.1 )
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A small garden fork (sense 1.2 )
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. 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 ” ) .
fork (plural forks )
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.
Coordinate terms: spoon , knife , table knife , butter knife , steak knife , spork , foon , chork
Hyponyms: salad fork , cocktail fork , crab fork , pickle fork , chip fork
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.
Hyponyms: pitchfork , digging fork , spade fork , spading fork , garden fork
A tuning fork .
( by abstraction, from the tool shape ) A fork in the road , as follows:
( physical ) An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two .
( figurative ) A decision point .
( by abstraction, from the tool shape ) A point where a waterway , such as a river or other stream , splits and flows into two (or more) different directions.
Antonym: confluence
( metonymically , and analogous to any prong of a pronged tool) 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
Synonyms: branch , prong ( but the word prong is usually reserved for the physical sense, and the word tine is always so )
( figuratively , decision-making) A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
( metonymically ) Either of the (figurative) paths thus taken.
( figuratively , by abstraction, from a physical fork) ( software development, content management, data management ) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.
( metonymically ) Any of the pieces/versions (of software , content , or data sets ) thus created.
Antonym: single source of truth , SSOT
( software ) 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 .
( 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.
( content management ) 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).
( content management ) Any of the pieces/versions of content thus created.
( cryptocurrencies ) A split in a blockchain resulting from protocol disagreements, or a branch of the blockchain resulting from such a split.
Hyponyms: hard fork , soft fork
2015 August 17, Alex Hern, “Bitcoin's forked: chief scientist launches alternative proposal for the currency”, in The Guardian [1] :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.
( chess ) The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).
( British , vulgar ) The crotch . (Can we add an example for this sense?)
( colloquial ) A forklift .
Are you qualified to drive a fork?
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!
( cycling , motorcycling , by abstraction from a pronged tool's shape) 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.
The upper front brow of a saddle bow , connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.
Synonyms: swell , pommel
( obsolete ) A gallows .
a. 1680 , Samuel Butler , Characters :They had run through all punishments, and just 'scaped the fork
eating utensil
Afrikaans: vurk f
Ajië: wuuryèet
Albanian: pirun (sq) , furkulicë (sq)
Amharic: ቩካ ( vuka )
Arabic: شَوْكَة f ( šawka ) , مِذْرَاة (ar) f ( miḏrāh )
Algerian Arabic: فرشيطة
Egyptian Arabic: شوكة f ( šōka )
Hijazi Arabic: شوكة f ( šōka )
Iraqi Arabic: چطل ( chaṭal )
Moroccan Arabic: فرشيطة ( furšīṭa )
South Levantine Arabic: شوكة f ( šōka )
Aragonese: forqueta f
Armenian: պատառաքաղ (hy) ( pataṙakʻaġ )
Aromanian: furculitsã f , bunelã f , pirunã f
Assamese: কাঁটাচামুচ ( kãtasamus ) , কাঁইটীয়া চামুচ ( kãitia samus )
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܡܲܫܠܝܘܿܢܵܐ m ( māšlyona ) , ܟ̰ܲܢܓܲܠ m ( čāngāl )
Asturian: tenedor (ast) m
Azerbaijani: çəngəl (az)
Bashkir: сәнске ( sənske )
Basque: sardexka
Belarusian: відэ́лец m ( vidéljec ) , ві́лка f ( vílka )
Bengali: কাঁটাচামচ (bn) ( kãṭacamoc )
Bhojpuri: कांटा ( kāṇṭā )
Breton: fourchetez (br) f
Brunei Malay: garpu
Bulgarian: ви́лица f ( vílica ) , ви́лка f ( vílka )
Burmese: ခရင်း (my) ( hka.rang: ) , ခက်ရင်း (my) ( hkak-rang: )
Catalan: forquilla (ca) f , forqueta (ca) f
Chechen: мӏара ( mˀara )
Cherokee: ᏴᎩ ( yvgi )
Chinese:
Cantonese: 叉 ( caa1 ) , 餐叉 ( caan1 caa1 )
Dungan: цацазы ( cacazɨ ) , цацар ( cacar )
Hokkien: 攕仔 (zh-min-nan) ( chhiám-á )
Mandarin: 叉子 (zh) ( chāzi ) , 叉兒 / 叉儿 ( chār ) , 餐叉 ( cānchā )
Wu: 叉
Chukchi: вилӄэн ( vilqėn ) , эюпинэӈ ( ėjupinėṇ )
Coptic: ϣⲗⲓⲧ m ( šlit ) , ϣⲗⲟⲕϣⲓ m ( šlokši )
Crimean Tatar: şatal , sançqı
Czech: vidlička (cs) f
Danish: gaffel (da) c
Dolgan: виилка ( viilka )
Dutch: vork (nl) f
Elfdalian: gaffel m
Erzya: сянгине ( śangińe )
Esperanto: forko (eo)
Estonian: kahvel (et)
Faroese: gaffil m
Finnish: haarukka (fi)
French: fourchette (fr) f
Friulian: piron m
Galician: garfo (gl) m
Georgian: ჩანგალი (ka) ( čangali )
German: Gabel (de) f
Greek: πιρούνι (el) n ( piroúni )
Greenlandic: ajassaatit pl
Gujarati: કાંટો ( kā̃ṭo )
Halkomelem: sts'ó:qw'els
Hebrew: מַזְלֵג (he) m ( mazlég )
Hindi: काँटा (hi) m ( kā̃ṭā ) or कांटा m ( kāṇṭā )
Hungarian: villa (hu)
Icelandic: gaffall (is) m
Ido: forketo (io)
Indonesian: garpu (id)
Interlingua: furchetta
Irish: forc (ga) m , gabhlóg f
Italian: forchetta (it) f
Japanese: フォーク (ja) ( fōku )
Kabuverdianu: garfu
Kalmyk: серә ( serä )
Kannada: ಫೋರ್ಕ್ ( phōrk )
Karelian: šorpikku
Kazakh: шанышқы (kk) ( şanyşqy )
Khmer: សម (km) ( sɑɑm )
Korean: 포크 (ko) ( pokeu )
Kurdish:
Central Kurdish: چەتاڵ ( çetall )
Northern Kurdish: çatel (ku) , çetel (ku)
Kyrgyz: айрыча ( ayrıca ) , ашайры ( aşayrı ) , вилка (ky) ( vilka )
Ladin: furchëta
Ladino: piron
Lao: ສ້ອມ (lo) ( sǭm )
Latin: furca f
Latvian: dakša f , dakšiņa f
Limburgish: versjèt n
Lithuanian: šakutė (lt) f
Low German:
German Low German: Gavel (nds) f
Lü: ᦏᦴᧈᦉᦱᧂ ( ṫhuu¹ṡaang )
Luxembourgish: Forschett (lb) f
Macedonian: вилушка f ( viluška )
Maguindanao: tinidul
Malay: garpu (ms) , cukit , porok
Malayalam: ഫോർക്ക് ( phōṟkkŭ )
Maltese: furketta (mt) f
Maori: paoka
Marathi: काटा m ( kāṭā )
Mbyá Guaraní: kuxa rakua
Mirandese: garfo m
Mizo: thirkut
Mòcheno: paru' m
Mongolian:
Cyrillic: сэрээ (mn) ( seree )
Mongolian: ᠰᠡᠷᠡᠭᠡ ( serege )
Navajo: bílaʼ dį́įʼii
Nepali: काँटा (ne) ( kā̃ṭā )
Norman: fourchette f ( Jersey )
North Frisian: goobel m
Northern Sami: gáffal
Norwegian:
Bokmål: gaffel (no) m
Nynorsk: gaffel m
Occitan: forqueta (oc) f
Odia: କଣ୍ଟା (or) ( kaṇṭā )
Ojibwe: badaka'igan
Ossetian: вилкӕ ( vilkæ )
Ottoman Turkish: چاتال ( çatal )
Pannonian Rusyn: видлїчка f ( vidljička )
Pashto: پنجه (ps) ( panjá )
Persian:
Dari: چَنْگَال ( čangāl ) , پَنْجَه ( panja )
Iranian Persian: چَنْگال ( čangâl )
Plautdietsch: Gaufel n
Polish: widelec (pl) m
Portuguese: garfo (pt) m
Punjabi:
Gurmukhi: ਕਾਂਟਾ m ( kāṇṭā )
Shahmukhi: کَانْٹا m ( kānṭā )
Rapa Nui: pātia kai
Rohingya: please add this translation if you can
Romagnol: furchèta f
Romanian: furculiță (ro) f
Romansch: furtgetta f ( Rumantsch Grischun, Surmiran ) , furchetta f ( Puter, Vallader ) , savetscha f ( Sursilvan ) , stgagna f ( Sutsilvan, Surmiran )
Russian: ви́лка (ru) f ( vílka )
Scottish Gaelic: forc f , greimire f
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: вѝљушка f , ви̏лица f
Roman: vìljuška (sh) f , vȉlica (sh) f
Sicilian: bruccetta (scn) f , broccia (scn) f , furchetta (scn) f
Sinhalese: ගෑරප්පුව ( gǣrappuwa )
Slovak: vidlička (sk) f
Slovene: vílice (sl) f pl
Sorbian:
Lower Sorbian: widlicki f pl
Upper Sorbian: widlički f pl , widlička f
Sotho: fereko
Southern Altai: айрууш ( ayruuš )
Southern Sami: tjåagkoe , tjåagka
Spanish: tenedor (es) m , trinche (es) m , trinchante m , forqueta (es) f , pinche (es) m ( long, for serving food, Puerto Rico )
Sranan Tongo: forku
Swahili: uma (sw)
Swedish: gaffel (sv) c
Sylheti: please add this translation if you can
Tagalog: tinedor
Tajik: чангол (tg) ( čangol ) , чангча ( čangča )
Tamil: போர்க் ( pōrk )
Taos: telędúnenemą
Tatar: чәнечке (tt) ( çäneçke )
Telugu: ఫోర్క్ ( phōrk )
Thai: ส้อม (th) ( sɔ̂m )
Tibetan: ཀང་དྲ ( kang dra )
Tigrinya: ፋርኬታ ( farketa )
Tlingit: ách at dusxha át
Turkish: çatal (tr)
Turkmen: şaryk , wilka , çarşak
Ukrainian: ви́лка f ( výlka ) , виде́лка (uk) f ( vydélka )
Urdu: کانْٹا m ( kānṭā )
Uyghur: ئارا ( ara ) , ۋىلكا ( wilka )
Uzbek: sanchqi (uz) , vilka (uz)
Venetan: piron (vec) m
Vietnamese: dĩa (vi) , nĩa (vi) , xiên (vi)
Volapük: fok (vo)
Walloon: fortchete (wa) f
Welsh: fforc (cy) f , fforch (cy) f
West Frisian: foarke n
White Hmong: rab rawg
Xârâcùù: fùrùsète
Yakut: биилкэ ( biilke ) , бииккэ ( biikke )
Yiddish: גאָפּל m ( gopl )
Yup'ik: uil'kaq
Zazaki: çengal m
Zhuang: fagca , ca
intersection
Afrikaans: vurk
Bulgarian: разклоне́ние (bg) n ( razklonénie )
Catalan: bifurcació (ca) f , enforcall m
Chinese:
Mandarin: (please verify ) 歧 (zh) ( qí )
Czech: rozcestí n
Danish: skillevej c , vejgaffel c
Dutch: vork (nl) f , splitsing (nl) f
Esperanto: vojforko
Estonian: lahe , teelahe
Finnish: haara (fi) , tienhaara (fi)
French: bifurcation (fr) f , fourche (fr) f
Galician: bifurcación (gl) m , gallo (gl) m
German: Gabelung (de) f , Verzweigung (de) f
Greek: δίστρατο n ( dístrato )
Halkomelem: st'éx̱
Italian: biforcazione (it) f , bivio (it) m
Japanese: 分岐点 (ja) ( ぶんきてん, bunkiten )
Korean: 갈림길 (ko) ( gallimgil )
Latin: bivium n
Latvian: atzarojums m
Limburgish: splitsjing f
Lithuanian: išsišakojimas m
Maori: tarahanga ( of the branch of a tree ) , torohanga ( of the branch of a tree ) , rīpekanga ( of a road )
Norman: froutchie f ( Jersey )
Norwegian:
Bokmål: forgrening m or f , forgreining m or f
Nynorsk: forgreining f
Polish: rozgałęzienie (pl) n , rozwidlenie (pl) n
Portuguese: bifurcação (pt) f
Romanian: bifurcație (ro)
Russian: разви́лка (ru) f ( razvílka )
Scottish Gaelic: gobhal m
Sicilian: biviu m
Slovak: obojsmerné spojenie n
Spanish: bifurcación (es) f
Swedish: gren (sv) c , förgrening (sv) c , vägskäl (sv) n , korsväg (sv) c
Tatar: чат (tt) ( çat )
Ukrainian: розви́лка f ( rozvýlka )
one of the parts into which anything is furcated
point where a waterway splits
Bulgarian: разклоне́ние (bg) n ( razklonénie )
Catalan: forcall m
Dutch: vork (nl) f , splitsing (nl) f
Esperanto: fluforko , riverforko , kanalforko
Estonian: lahe , veelahe (et)
Finnish: haara (fi) , joenhaara (fi)
French: bifurcation (fr) f , fourche (fr) f
German: Gabelung (de) f , Verzweigung (de) f
Greek: δίχαλο n ( díchalo )
Italian: biforcazione (it) f , bivio (it) m , ramo (it) m
Japanese: 分水 ( ぶんすい, bunsui )
Norman: froutchie f ( Jersey )
Norwegian:
Bokmål: forgreining m or f , forgrening m or f
Nynorsk: forgreining f
Polish: rozwidlenie (pl) n
Portuguese: bifurcação (pt) f
Scottish Gaelic: gobhal
Swedish: gren (sv) c , förgrening (sv) c
name of some river tributaries
figurative: point in time of making a decision
chess: simultaneous attack
computer science: splitting of a process
computer science: copying and separately developing a project
computer science: a separately developed project based upon a copy of an existing project
bicycle or motorcycle fork
front brow of the saddle
— see pommel
Translations to be checked
fork (third-person singular simple present forks , present participle forking , simple past and past participle forked )
( transitive , intransitive ) To divide into two or more branches or copies.
A road, a tree, or a stream forks .
( transitive , intransitive , computing ) To spawn a new child process by duplicating the existing process.
2008 , Mark G. Sobell, A Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux [2] , Pearson Education, →ISBN :A parent process forks a child process, which in turn can fork other processes.
2013 , W. Richard Stevens, Stephen A. Rago, Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment , 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN , page 304 :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.
( transitive , intransitive , software engineering ) To launch a separate software development effort based upon a modified copy of an existing software project, especially in free and open-source software.
2007 , Fadi P. Deek, James A. M. McHugh, Open Source: Technology and Policy , Cambridge University Press, →ISBN , page 21 :For various reasons, McCool's server project subsequently forked , leading to the development of the Apache Web Server.
2015 , Christian Bird et al. , editors, The Art and Science of Analyzing Software Data , Elsevier, →ISBN , page 77 :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.
( transitive , software engineering ) To create a copy of a distributed version control repository.
2015 , Sajal Debnath, Mastering PowerCLI , Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN , page 27 :In this model, anyone can fork an existing repository and push changes to their personal fork.
( transitive ) To move with a fork (as hay or food).
1844 , John Wilson , Essay on the Genius, and Character of Burns :forking the sheaves on the high-laden cart
2018 , Maya Blake, chapter 2, in What the Greek's Money Can't Buy (Greek Bachelors), HarperCollins UK, →ISBN :Brianna curbed her pang of envy as she forked her plain, low-fat, crouton-free salad niçoise into her mouth and shook her head.
( transitive , British ) To kick someone in the crotch.
( intransitive ) To shoot into blades , as corn does.
1707 , J[ohn] Mortimer , The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. [ … ] , London: [ … ] J[ ohn] H[ umphreys] for H[ enry] Mortlock [ … ] , and J[ onathan] Robinson [ … ] , →OCLC :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.
( transitive ) Euphemistic form of fuck .
They were forking each other in the back room.
to divide into two or more branches
computer science: to spawn a new child process
computer science: to copy and separately develop a software project
to kick someone in the crotch
to shoot into blades, as corn
Translations to be checked
fork (plural forks )
( mining ) The bottom of a sump into which the water of a mine drains.
fork (third-person singular simple present forks , present participle forking , simple past and past participle forked )
( mining , transitive ) To bale a shaft dry.
From Old Norse forkr ( “ boathook ” ) , from Latin furca ( “ fork, pitchfork ” ) .
fork c (singular definite forken , plural indefinite forke )
(two-pronged ) fork , pitchfork
From English fork in the computer science sense. Doublet of vork ( “ fork ” ) .
fork f (plural forks , diminutive forkje n )
( computer science ) a fork , splitting-up of an existing process into itself and a child process executing parts of the same program
fork
Alternative form of forke