spoke

• IPA^(key): /spəʊk/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -əʊk
• Hyphenation: spoke

From Middle English spoke, from Old English spāca, from Proto-West Germanic *spaikā, from Proto-Germanic *spaikǭ. Compare Scots spaik (“spoke”) and English spike.

spoke (plural spokes)

1. A support structure that connects the axle or the hub of a wheel to the rim.
   • 1921, W. F. Grew, The Cycle Industry, London, page 4:

     The wheels were at first copies of a light hand-cart wheel, the wood spokes were brought together by tapering the spoke ends and wedging them together at the nave or hub and inserting the other ends in slots in the felloe or wood rim.

2. (nautical) A projecting handle of a steering wheel.
3. A rung of a ladder.
4. A stick inserted into the wheel of a vehicle to keep the wheel from turning.
5. One of the outlying points in a hub-and-spoke model of transportation.

spoke (third-person singular simple present spokes, present participle spoking, simple past and past participle spoked)

1. (transitive) To furnish (a wheel) with spokes.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

spoke

1. simple past of speak
2. (archaic or nonstandard) past participle of speak
   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 366, column 2:

     Cleo. Hye thee againe, / I haue ſpoke already, and it is provided.

   • 1741, The London Magazine, and Monthly Chronologer‎^[1], volume 10, C. Ackers, page 435:

     Thoſe who have ſpoke in its Favour have allowed, that it is defective, with regard to the preſent Circumſtances of Europe, […]

   • 2014 May 1, John Barker, Futures: A Novel‎^[2], PM Press, page 131:

     I should have spoke to him there and then, seen he was in the mood to do something stupid.

• kepos, Pokes, pokes, posek

spoke

1. plural of spook

spoke

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of spoken

• spak, spake, spok, spook

From Old English spāca, from Proto-West Germanic *spaikā, from Proto-Germanic *spaikǭ.

• IPA^(key): /ˈspɔːk(ə)/
• (early) IPA^(key): /ˈspɑːk(ə)/
• (Northern) IPA^(key): /ˈspaːk/

spoke (plural spokes or spoken)

1. A spoke; a support radiating from the middle of a wheel.
2. A sharp spike or projection on the edge of a wheel.

• English: spoke
• Scots: spaik

• “spōk(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 12 June 2018.