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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

stoke.

To poke, pierce, thrust.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/stəʊk/Received-Pronunciation/stoʊk/Canada, General-American/stəʉk/Australia/stɐʉk/New-Zealand
  1. To poke, pierce, thrust.

    obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English stoken, from Middle Dutch stoken (“to poke, thrust”) or Middle Low German stoken (“to poke, thrust”), from Old Dutch *stokon or Old Saxon *stokon, both from Proto-West Germanic *stokōn, from Proto-Germanic *stukōną (“to be stiff, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewg- (“to push, beat”). Cognate with Middle High German stoken (“to pierce, jab”), Norwegian Nynorsk stauka (“to push, thrust”). Alternative etymology derives the Middle English word from Old French estoquer, estochier (“to thrust, strike”), from the same Germanic source. More at stock.

noun/stəʊk/Received-Pronunciation/stoʊk/Canada, General-American/stəʉk/Australia/stɐʉk/New-Zealand
  1. An act of poking, piercing, thrusting

Where this word comes from

From Middle English stoken, from Middle Dutch stoken (“to poke, thrust”) or Middle Low German stoken (“to poke, thrust”), from Old Dutch *stokon or Old Saxon *stokon, both from Proto-West Germanic *stokōn, from Proto-Germanic *stukōną (“to be stiff, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewg- (“to push, beat”). Cognate with Middle High German stoken (“to pierce, jab”), Norwegian Nynorsk stauka (“to push, thrust”). Alternative etymology derives the Middle English word from Old French estoquer, estochier (“to thrust, strike”), from the same Germanic source. More at stock.

verb/stəʊk/Received-Pronunciation/stoʊk/Canada, General-American/stəʉk/Australia/stɐʉk/New-Zealand
  1. To feed, stir up, especially, a fire or furnace.

    transitive
  2. To encourage a behavior or emotion.

    broadly · transitive
  3. To attend to or supply a furnace with fuel; to act as a stoker or fireman.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

From a back-formation of stoker, apparently from Dutch stoker, from stoken (“to kindle a fire, incite, instigate”), from Middle Dutch stoken (“to poke, thrust”), from stock (“stick, stock”), see: tandenstoker. Ultimately the same word as above.

noun/stəʊk/Received-Pronunciation/stoʊk/Canada, General-American/stəʉk/Australia/stɐʉk/New-Zealand
  1. Misconstruction of stokes, a unit of kinematic viscosity.

    alt-of · misconstruction
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.