Fork (pronounced fawrk)
(1) An instrument having two or more tines (popularly
called prongs), for holding, lifting, etc., as an implement for handling food
or any of various agricultural tools.
(2) Something resembling or suggesting this in form or
conceptually.
(3) As tuning fork, instruments used (1) in the tuning of
musical instruments and (2) by audiologists and others involved in the study or
treatment of hearing.
(4) In machinery, a type of yoke; a pronged part of any
device.
(5) A generalized description of the division into
branches.
(6) In physical geography and cartography, by
abstraction, the point or part at which a thing, as a river or a road, divides
into branches; any of the branches into which a thing divides (and used by some
as a convention to describe a principal tributary of a river.
(7) In horology, (in a lever escapement) the forked end
of the lever engaging with the ruby pin.
(8) In bicycle & motorcycle design, the support of
the front wheel axles, having the shape of a two-tined fork.
(9) In archery, the barbed head of an arrow.
(10) To pierce, raise, pitch, dig etc, with a fork.
(11) Metonymically (and analogous with the prongs of a
pronged tool), to render something to resemble a fork or describe something using
the shape as a metaphor.
(12) In chess, to maneuver so as to place two opponent's
pieces under simultaneous attack by the same piece (most associated with moves
involving the knight).
(13) In computer programming, to modify a software’s source
code to create a version sufficiently different to be considered a separate path
of development.
(14) In computer programming, as "fork bomb", a program that creates a large number of self-replicating tasks or processes in a computer system in order to cause a DoS (denial of service).
(15) To turn as indicated at a fork in a road, path etc.
(16) Figuratively, a point in time when a decision is
taken.
(17) In fulminology (the scientific (as opposed to the artistic or religious) study of lightning), as "forked lightning", the
type of atmospheric discharge of electricity which hits the ground in a bolt.
(18) In software development, content management &
data management, figuratively (by abstraction, from a physical fork), a departure
from having a single source of truth (SSOT) (unintentionally as originally
defined but later also applied where the variation was intentional; metonymically,
any of the instances of software, data sets etc, thus created.
(19) In World War II (1939-1945) era British military jargon, the male
crotch, used to indicate the genital area as a point of vulnerability in physical
assault.
(20) in occupational slang, a clipping of forklift; any of
the blades of a forklift (or, in plural, the set of blades), on which the goods
to be raised are loaded.
(21) In saddlery, the upper front brow of a saddle bow,
connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.
(22) In slang, a gallows (obsolete).
(23) As a transitive verb, a euphemistic for “fuck” one
of the variations on f***, ***k etc and used typically to circumvent text-based
filters.
(24) In underground, extractive mining, the bottom of a
sump into which the water of a mine drains; to bale a shaft dry (still often spelled forcque).
(25) As the variant chork, an eating utensil made with a combination of chopstick & fork, intended for neophyte chopstick users.
(26) In literature, as "silver fork novel" a genre in nineteenth century English literature that depicted the lives of the upper class and the aristocracy (known also as the "fashionable novel" and "drawing room fiction").
Pre-1000: From the Middle English forke (digging fork), from the Old English force & forca (pitchfork,
forked instrument, forked weapon; forked instrument used to torture), from the Proto-West
Germanic furkō (fork), from the Latin
furca (pitchfork, forked stake;
gallows, beam, stake, support post, yoke) of uncertain origin. The Middle
English was later reinforced by the Anglo-Norman & Old Northern French forque (it was from the Old French forche which French gained fourche), also from the Latin. It was cognate with the Old Frisian forke, the North Frisian forck (fork), the Dutch vork (fork), the Danish vork (fork) and the German Forke (pitchfork). The evolved Middle English form displaced the native
Old English gafol, ġeafel & ġeafle (fork) (and the apparently
regionally specific forcel (pitchfork)
though the use from circa 1200 to mean “forked stake or post used as a prop
when erecting a gallows” did for a while endure, probably because of the
long-life of the architectural plans for a structure which demanded no change
or functional improvement. The alternative spelling forcque is used in mining and describes the "bottom of a sump". Perhaps surprisingly, dictionaries don't list forkish or forkesque as standard adjectives. Fork is a noun & verb, forking is a noun, verb, adjective & adverb, forklike is an adjective and forked is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is forks.
The forks of The Latin furca (in
its primary sense of “fork”) may be from the primitive Indo-European gherk &
gherg (fork) although etymologists
have never traced any explanation for the addition of the -c-, something which
remains mysterious even if the word was influenced by the Proto-Germanic furkaz
& firkalaz (stake, stick, pole,
post) which was from the primitive Indo-European perg- (pole, post). If such
a link existed, it would relate the word to the Old English forclas pl (bolt), the Old Saxon ferkal (lock, bolt, bar), the Old Norse forkr (pole, staff, stick), the Norwegian
fork (stick, bat) and the Swedish fork (pole). The descendants in other languages include
the Sranan Tongo forku, the Dutch vork, the Japanese フォーク (fōku), the Danish korf, the
Kannada ಫೋರ್ಕ್ (phōrk), the Korean 포크 (pokeu), the Maori paoka,
the Tamil போர்க் (pōrk) and the Telugu ఫోర్క్ (phōrk). In many languages, the previous form was
retained for most purposes while the English fork was adopted in the context of
software development.
Although visitors from Western Europe discovered the novelty of the table fork in Constantinople as early as the eleventh century, the civilizing influence from Byzantium seems not routinely to have appeared on the tables of the English nobility until the 1400s and the evidence suggests it didn’t come into common use before the early seventeenth century. The critical moment is said to have come in 1601 when the celebrated traveller and writer Thomas Coryat (or Coryate) (circa 1577–1617) returned to London from one of his tours, bringing with him the then almost unknown "table fork" which he'd seen used in Italy. This "continental affectation" made him the subject of mirth and playwrights dubbed him "the fork-carrying traveller" while the street was earthier, the nickname "Furcifer" (from the Latin meaning "fork-bearer, rascal") soon adopted and despite the early scepticism, there soon were many types of "specific purpose forks (cake fork, cocktail fork, dessert fork etc). Mr Coryat thus made one of the great contributions to the niceties of life, his other being the introduction to the English language of the word "umbrella", another influence from Italy.
Cause and effect: The fork in the road.
In Lewis Carroll’s (1832–1898, the (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–1898)) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), when Alice comes to a fork in the road, she encounters the Cheshire Cat sitting in a tree:
Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
Alice: “I don’t know.”
Cat: “Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”
One can see the cat’s point and a reductionist like Donald Rumsfeld (1932–2021: US defense secretary 1975-1977 & 2001-2006) there would have ended the exchange but the feline proved more helpful, telling Alice she’ll see the Mad Hatter and the March Hare if she goes in certain directions, implying that no matter which path she chooses, she’ll encounter strange characters. That she did and the book is one of the most enjoyable flights of whimsy in English.
The idiomatic phrase “fork in the road” wasn’t in use early in the seventeenth century when translators were laboring to create the King James Bible (KJV, 1611) so “…the king of Babylon so stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways…” appeared whereas by 1982 when the New King James Version (NKJV, 1982) was released, that term would have been archaic so the translation was rendered as “…the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the road, at the fork of the two roads…”.
Ezekiel 21:19-23; King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611):
Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city. Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver. At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort. And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken.
Ezekiel 21:19-23; New King James Version of the Bible (NKJV, 1982):
And son of man, appoint for yourself two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to go; both of them shall go from the same land. Make a sign; put it at the head of the road to the city. Appoint a road for the sword to go to Rabbah of the Ammonites, and to Judah, into fortified Jerusalem. For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the road, at the fork of the two roads, to use divination: he shakes the arrows, he consults the images, he looks at the liver. In his right hand is the divination for Jerusalem: to set up battering rams, to call for a slaughter, to lift the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to heap up a siege mound, and to build a wall. And it will be to them like a false divination in the eyes of those who have sworn oaths with them; but he will bring their iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken.
The KJV & NKJV closely are related but do in detail differ in the language used, the objective of the latter being to enhance readability while retaining the stylistic beauty and literary structure of the original. Most obviously, the NKJV abandoned the use of archaic words and convention of grammar (thee, thou, ye, thy, thine, doeth, speaketh etc) which can make it difficult for modern readers to understand, rather as students can struggle with Shakespeare’s text, something not helped by lecturers reminding them of its beauty, a quality which often escapes the young. The NKJV emerged from a reaction to some of the twentieth century translations which traditionalist readers thought had “descended” too far into everyday language; it was thus a compromise between greater readability and a preservation of the original tone. Both the KJV & NKJV primarily used the Textus Receptus (received text) for the New Testament and Masoretic Text for the Old Testament and this approach differed from other modern translations (such as the New International Version (NIV, 1978) & English Standard Version (ESV, which 2001) used a wider sub-set of manuscripts, including older ones like the Alexandrian texts (Codex Vaticanus, Sinaiticus etc) So, the NKJV is more “traditional” than modern translations but not as old-fashioned as the KJV and helpfully, unlike the KJV which provided hardly any footnotes about textual variants, the NKJV was generous, showing where differences existed between the major manuscript traditions (Textus Receptus, Alexandrian & Byzantine), a welcome layer of transparency but importantly, both used a formal equivalence (word-for-word) approach which put a premium on direct translation over paraphrasing, the latter technique much criticized in the later translations.
Historians of food note word seems first to have appeared in this context of eating utensils in an inventory of household goods from 1430 and they suggest, because their influence in culinary matters was strongest, it was probably from the Old North French forque. It came to be applied to rivers from 1753 and of roads by 1839. The use in bicycle design began in 1871 and this was adopted directly within twenty years when the first motorcycles appeared. The chess move was first so-described in the 1650s while the old slang, forks "the two forefingers" was from 1812 and endures to this day as “the fork”. In the world of cryptocurrencies, fork has been adopted with fetish-like enthusiasm to refer to (1) a split in the blockchain resulting from protocol disagreements, or (2) a branch of the blockchain resulting from such a split.
The verb dates from the early fourteenth century in the sense of (1) “to divide in branches, go separate ways" & (2) "disagree, be inconsistent", both derived from the noun. The transitive meaning "raise or pitch with a fork" is from 1812, used most frequently in the forms forked & forking while the slang verb phrase “fork (something) over” is from 1839 while “fork out” (give over) is from 1831). The now obsolete legal slang “forking” in the forensic sense of a "disagreement among witnesses" dates from the turn of the fifteenth century. The noun forkful was an agricultural term from the 1640s while the specialized fourchette (in reference to anatomical structures, from French fourchette (diminutive of fourche (a fork)) was from 1754. The noun pitchfork (fork for lifting and pitching hay etc.) described the long-used implement constructed commonly with a long handle and two or three prongs first in the mid fourteenth century, altered (by the influence of pichen (to throw, thrust), from the early thirteenth century Middle English pic-forken, from pik (source of pike). The verb use meaning "to lift or throw with a pitchfork," is noted from 1837. The spork, an eating utensil which was fashioned by making several long indents in the bowl to create prongs debuted in 1909.
Huis Doorn (Doorn House) near Utrecht in the Netherlands, was the country house in which the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941; Emperor of Germany & King of Prussia 1888-1918) would live until his death. Confiscated by the state at the end of World War II (1939-1945), Huis Doorn is now a museum, maintained much as the former Kaiser left it. At his place on the dining room table sits one of his special forks with three tines, the widened one to the left a blade serving as a knife because a congenitally withered left-arm made the use of a conventional utensil too difficult.
Compelled by circumstances to abdicate at the end of World War I (1914-1918) Wilhelm was granted asylum by the neutral Netherlands, the cabinet insisting his status would be that of a private German citizen; to the status-conscious former Kaiser, it remained for the rest of his life a disappointment that Wilhelmina (1880–1962; Queen of the Netherlands 1890-1948) would neither receive nor visit him. He’d arrived in the Netherlands accompanied by a reputed 64 train carriages of imperial household goods (furnishings, art, bibelots and such) and an unknown slice of the German exchequer so was able to purchase and adequately decorate Huis Doorn which he purchased, taking up residence in May 1920. However much of the Imperial Treasury came with him remains a matter of speculation but until his death, he maintained a household staff sufficient to ensure “a certain grandeur”. Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) did on several occasions pay a visit but that stopped as soon as the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933; the former sovereign had out-lived any potential usefulness to the party. Indeed, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) would have preferred if the old man had had the decency quietly to drop dead because the last thing he wanted was any possibility the monarchy might be restored. He regarded Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) greatest mistake (and there were a few) as having not deposed the Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947; King of Italy 1900-1946) when he had the chance and to his dying day suspected a conspiracy between the Freemasons and the royal court was behind the Duce’s downfall in 1943. There may be something in that because Marshal Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956; Prime Minister of Italy 1943-1944), appointed by the King as Mussolini’s replacement, was a confessed Freemason.
In a coda which would have amused those who remembered Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) glee at hearing the chant “Hang the Kaiser!” at the end of World War I, after the Netherlands was invaded in 1940, fearing the Nazis might murder their former ruler, through diplomatic channels he offered to receive Wilhelm “with dignity and consideration” if he chose to seek refuge in the UK. The offer was declined and he remained safely in Huis Doon until his death, the Nazis simply ignoring him because in the euphoria of victory, there was in Germany no longer a significant pro-monarchist movement. Churchill's offer has been treated by some historians as “a humanitarian gesture” but he always had a fondness for monarchical government (his wife called him “the last man in Europe still to believe in the divine right of kings”) and it's suspected he may have pondered the idea of a restoration (possibly Crown Prince Wilhelm (1882–1951)) in constitutional form.
Der Gableschwanz Teufl: The Lockheed P-38 Lightning (1939-1945). During World War II, the Luftwaffe’s (German air force) military slang for the twin-boomed Lockheed P-38 Lightning was Der Gableschwanz Teufl (the fork-tailed devil).
The idiomatic “speak with forked tongue” to indicate duplicitous speech dates from 1885 and was an invention of US English though reputedly influenced by phrases settlers learned in their interactions with first nations peoples (then called “Red Indians”). The earlier “double tongue” (a la “two-faced”) in the same sense was from the fifteenth century. Fork as a clipping of the already truncated fork-lift (1953) fom the fork-lift truck (1946), appears to have enter the vernacular circa 1994. The adjective forked (branched or divided in two parts) was the past-participle adjective from the verb and came into use early in the fourteenth century. It was applied to roads in the 1520s and more generally within thirty years while the use in the sixteenth and seventeenth century with a suggestion of "cuckold" (on the notion of "horned") is long obsolete. Applied in many contexts (literally & figuratively), inventions (with and without hyphens) include fork-bomb, fork-buffet, fork-dinner, fork-head, rolling-fork, fork-over, fork-off & fork-up (the latter pair euphemistic substitutions for "fuck off" & "fuck-up).
Führerspork: Spork (left) from a flatware set (right) made for Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday, sold at auction in 2018 for £12,500. The items had been discovered in England in a house once owned by a senior military officer, the assumption being they were looted in 1945 (“souveniring” or “spoils of war” in soldiers' parlance), the items all bearing the Nazi eagle, swastika and Hitler's initials. Auction houses can be inconsistent in their descriptions of sporks and in some cases they're listed as splayds, the designs meaning sometimes it's a fine distinction.
1979 Benelli 750 Sei (left) and Benelli factory schematic of the 750 Sei’s fork (series 2a, right).
One quirk
in the use of the word is the tendency of motorcyclists to refer to the front
fork as “the forks”. Used on almost every
motorcycle made, the fork is an assembly which connects the front axle (and
thus the wheel) to the frame, usually by via a pair (upper & lower) of
yokes; the fork provides both the front suspension (springs or hydraulics) and
makes possible the steering. The reason
the apparatus is often called “the forks” is the two most obvious components
(the left & right) tubes appear to be separate when really they are two
prongs connected at the top. Thus, a
motor cycle manufacturer describes the assembly (made of many components (clamp,
tubes, legs, springs, dampers etc)) “a fork” but, because of the appearance,
riders often think of them as a pair of forks, thus the vernacular “the forks”. English does have other examples of such
apparent aberrations such as a “pair of spectacles” which is sold as a single
item but the origin of eye-glasses was in products sold as separate lens and
users would (according to need) buy one glass (what became the monocle) or a pair
of glasses. That is a different structural
creation than the bra which on the model of a “pair of glasses” would be a “pair
of something” but the word is a clipping of “brassiere”. English borrowed brassiere from the French brassière, from the Old French braciere (which was originally a lining
fitted inside armor which protected the arm, only later becoming a garment),
from the Old French brace (arm)
although by then it described a chemise (a kind of undershirt) but in the US,
brassiere was used from 1893 when the first bras were advertised and from
there, use spread. The three syllables
were just too much to survive the onslaught of modernity and the truncated
“bra” soon prevailed, being the standard form throughout the English-speaking
world by the early 1930s. Curiously, in
French, a bra is a soutien-gorge
which translates literally and rather un-romantically as “throat-supporter”
although “chest uplifter” is a better translation.
There have been variations on the classic fork and even designs which don’t use a conventional front fork, most of which have been variations on the “swinging arm” a structure which is either is or tends towards the horizontal. One of the most memorable to use swinging arms was the 2004 Dodge Tomahawk, a “motorcycle” constructed around a 506 cubic inch (8.3 litre) version of the V10s used in the Dodge Viper (1991-2010 & 2013-2017) and the concept demonstrated what imaginative engineers can do if given time, money, resources and a disconnection from reality. Designing a 500 horsepower (370 kW) motorcycle obviously takes some thought so what they did to equalize things a bit in what would otherwise be an unequal battle with physics was use four independently sprung wheels which allowed the machine to corner with a lean (up to 45o said to be possible) although no photographs seem to exist of an intrepid rider putting this projection to the test. Rather than a fork, swinging arms were used and while this presumably enhanced high-speed stability, it also meant the turning circle was something like that of one of the smaller aircraft carriers. There were suggestions a top speed of some 420 mph (675 km/h) was at least theoretically possible although a sense of reality did briefly intrude and this was later revised to 250 mph (400 km/h). In the Dodge design office, presumably it was thought safe to speculate because of the improbability of finding anyone both sufficient competent and crazy enough to explore the limits; one would find plenty of either but the characteristics rarely co-exist. Remarkably, as many as ten replicas were sold at a reputed US$555,000 and although (mindful of the country’s litigious habits) all were non-operative and described as “art deco inspired automotive sculpture” to be admired as static displays, some apparently have been converted to full functionality although there have been no reports of top speed testing.
Britney Spears (b 1981): "Video clip with fork feature", Instagram, 11 May 2025.
Unfortunately, quickly Ms Spears deleted the more revealing version of the clip but for those pondering the messaging, Spearologists (a thoughtful crew devoted to their discipline) deconstructed the content, noting it came some days after she revealed it had been four months she’d left her house. The silky, strapless dress and sweat-soaked, convulsing flesh were (by her standards) uncontroversial but what may have mystified non-devotees was the fork she at times held in her grasp. Apparently, the fork was an allusion to her earlier quote: “Shit! Now I have to find my FORK!!!”, made during what was reported as a “manic meltdown” (itself interesting in that it at least suggests the existence of “non-manic” meltdowns) at a restaurant, following the abrupt departure of her former husband (2022-2024) Hesam "Sam" Asghari (b 1994). The link between restaurant and video clip was reports Mr Asghari was soon to be interviewed and there would be questions about the marriage. One of her earlier posts had included a fork stabbing a lipstick (forks smeared with lipstick a trick also used in Halloween costuming to emulate facial scratches) and the utensil in the clip was said to be “a symbol of her frustration and emotional state.” Now we know.
He's remembered now for (1) his role in building up the Imperial German Navy, triggering events which would play some part in the coming of World War I, (2) his distinctive twin-forked beard and (3) being the namesake for the Bismarck class battleship Tirpitz (1939-1944) which, although she hardly ever took to the high seas and fired barely a shot in anger, merely by being moored in Norwegian fjords, she compelled the British Admiralty to watch her with a mix of awe and dread, necessitating keeping in home waters a number of warships badly needed elsewhere. Such was the threat his namesake battleship represented, just the mistaken belief she was steaming into the path of a convoy (PQ 17, June 1942) of merchant ships bound for the Russian port of Archangel caused the Admiralty to issue a “scatter order” (ie disperse the convoy from the escorting warships), resulting in heavy losses. After a number of attempts, in 1944, she finally was sunk in a raid by RAF (Royal Air Force) bombers but, because some of the capsized hull remained visible above the surface, some wags in the navy insisted the air force had not "sunk the beast" but merely "lowered her to the waterline". It wasn't until after the war the British learned the RAF's successful mission, strategically, had been unnecessary, earlier attacks (including the Admiralty's using mines placed by crews in midget submarines) having inflicted so much damage there was by 1944 no prospect of the Tirpitz again venturing far from her moorings.
When Großadmiral von Tirpitz died in 1930, he and twin-fork beard were, in the one casket, buried in Bavaria's Münchner Waldfriedhof “woodland cemetery”. The “one body = one casket” protocol is of course the almost universal practice but there have been exceptions and one was Lieutenant General Gaishi Nagaoka (1858-1933) who served in the Imperial Japanese Army between 1978-1908, including as vice chief of the general staff during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). While serving as a military instructor, one of his students was the future Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975; leader of the Republic of China (mainland) 1928-1949 & the renegade province of Taiwan 1949-1975). After retiring from the military, he entered politics, elected in 1924 as a member of the House of Representatives (after Japan in the 1850s ended its “isolation” policy, it’s political and social system were a mix of Japanese, British and US influences). After he died in 1933, by explicit request, his impressive “handlebar” moustache carefully was removed and buried in a separate casket in Aoyama Cemetery.
