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Fork

1. An instrument consisting consisting of a handle with a shank terminating in two or more prongs or tines, which are usually of metal, parallel and slightly curved; used from piercing, holding, taking up, or pitching anything.

2. Anything furcate or like of a fork in shape, or furcate at the extremity; as, a tuning fork.

3. 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. Let it fall . . . Though the fork invade The region of my heart. (Shak) A thunderbolt with three forks. (Addison)

4. The place where a division or a union occurs; the angle or opening between two branches or limbs; as, the fork of a river, a tree, or a road.

5. The gibbet. Fork beam a mine is said to be in fork, or an engine to have the water in fork, when all the water is drawn out of the mine. The forks of a river or a road, the branches into which it divides, or which come together to form it; the place where separation or union takes place.

6. To shoot into blades, as corn. The corn beginneth to fork.

Origin: as. Forc, fr. L. Furca. Cf. Fourch, Furcate.