fork
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /fɔːk/
ipa: /fɔɹk/
ipa: [fo̞ɹk]
note: without the horse–hoarse merger, rhotic
ipa: /fo(ː)ɹk/
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)k
Forms: form: forks
form: forking
form: forked
form: forked
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”).
Senses: examples: text: A road, a tree, or a stream forks.
glosses: To divide into two or more branches or copies.
examples: text: A parent process forks a child process, which in turn can fork other processes.
ref: 2008, Mark G. Sobell, A Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Pearson Education, →ISBN:
text: 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.
ref: 2013, W. Richard Stevens, Stephen A. Rago, Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, page 304:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To divide into two or more branches or copies.
To spawn a new child process by duplicating the existing process.
examples: text: For various reasons, McCool's server project subsequently forked, leading to the development of the Apache Web Server.
ref: 2007, Fadi P. Deek, James A. M. McHugh, Open Source: Technology and Policy, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 21:
text: 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.
ref: 2015, Christian Bird et al., editors, The Art and Science of Analyzing Software Data, Elsevier, →ISBN, page 77:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
software
glosses: 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.
examples: text: In this model, anyone can fork an existing repository and push changes to their personal fork.
ref: 2015, Sajal Debnath, Mastering PowerCLI, Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 27:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
software
glosses: To divide into two or more branches or copies.
To create a copy of a distributed version control repository.
examples: text: forking the sheaves on the high-laden cart
ref: 1844, John Wilson, Essay on the Genius, and Character of Burns:
text: Brianna curbed her pang of envy as she forked her plain, low-fat, crouton-free salad niçoise into her mouth and shook her head.
ref: 2018, Maya Blake, chapter 2, in What the Greek's Money Can't Buy (Greek Bachelors), HarperCollins UK, →ISBN:
glosses: To move with a fork (as hay or food).
glosses: To kick someone in the crotch.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
glosses: To shoot into blades, as corn does.
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: To simultaneously attack two opposing pieces with a single attacking piece.
examples: text: They were forking each other in the back room.
glosses: Euphemistic form of fuck.
Derived terms: sense: computer science: spawn a new child process
word: fork bomb
word: dig one's grave with a fork
word: dig one's grave with a fork and spoon
word: fork off
word: fork out
word: fork over
word: stick a fork in something
Related terms: knife
spoon