Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of various kinds of wild ducks, especially the pochard.
  • noun Any frightful object; a bugbear.
  • noun One who or that which pokes.
  • noun An iron or steel bar or rod used in poking or stirring a fire.
  • noun A small stick or iron used for setting the plaits of ruffs; a poking-stick.
  • noun An iron instrument used for driving hoops on masts. It has a flat foot at one end and a round knob at the other.
  • noun In cotton manufacturing, a vertical rod or rack which sustains and gives motion to the bobbin or ring-rail of a roving or ring-spinning machine; also, a rod with similar functions in other machines: sometimes called a lifting-poker.
  • noun A game of cards played by two or more persons with a full pack of fifty-two cards, which rank as in whist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A game at cards derived from brag, and first played about 1835 in the Southwestern United States.
  • noun Colloq. U. S. Any imagined frightful object, especially one supposed to haunt the darkness; a bugbear.
  • noun One who pokes.
  • noun That which pokes or is used in poking, especially a metal bar or rod used in stirring a fire of coals.
  • noun A poking-stick.
  • noun (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. The poachard.
  • noun a picture formed in imitation of bisterwashed drawings, by singeing the surface of wood with a heated poker or other iron.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US, colloquial Any imagined frightful object, especially one supposed to haunt the darkness; a bugbear.
  • noun One who pokes.
  • noun poker All the four cards of the same rank.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of various card games in which players bet that they hold the highest-ranking hand
  • noun fire iron consisting of a metal rod with a handle; used to stir a fire

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare Danish pokker ("the deuce, devil"), and English puck.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

to poke + -er.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

American English, perhaps from first element of German Pochspiel, from German pochen, perhaps from French poque

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