fork

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A utensil with two or more prongs, used for eating or serving food.
2. n. An implement with two or more prongs used for raising, carrying, piercing, or digging.
3. n. A bifurcation or separation into two or more branches or parts.
4. n. The point at which such a bifurcation or separation occurs: a fork in a road.
5. n. One of the branches of such a bifurcation or separation: the right fork. See Synonyms at branch.
6. n. Games An attack by one chess piece on two pieces at the same time.
7. v. To raise, carry, pitch, or pierce with a fork.
8. v. To give the shape of a fork to (one's fingers, for example).
9. v. Games To launch an attack on (two chess pieces).
10. v. Informal To pay. Used with over, out, or up: forked over $80 for front-row seats; forked up the money owed.
11. v. To divide into two or more branches: The river forks here.
12. v. To use a fork, as in working.
13. v. To turn at or travel along a fork.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An instrument or tool consisting of a handle with a shank, usually of metal, terminating in two or more prongs or tines. Specifically— Such an instrument, of small size, used at table to hold food while it is being cut with the knife, and to lift food to the mouth.
2. n. One of various agricultural tools with the prongs of which loose substances are gathered and lifted, as a hay-fork or dung-fork. See pitchfork.
3. n. Something resembling a fork in form A tuning-fork.
4. n. One of the parts into which anything is divided by bifurcation; a forking branch or division; a prong or shoot: as, the forks of a road or stream; Clark's fork of Columbia river; a fork of lightning.
5. n. The point or barb of an arrow.
6. n. The bifurcated part of the human frame; the legs.
7. n. A gibbet; in the plural, the gallows. See furca.
8. n. In mining, the bottom of the sump.
9. To raise or pitch with a fork, as hay.
10. To dig and break with a fork, as ground.
11. In mining, to pump or otherwise clear out (water) from a shaft or mine. Forking the water is drawing it all out; and when it is done the mine or the water is said to be forked, and the engine to be in fork. Pryce.
12. To become bifurcated or forked; send out diverging parts like the tines of a fork.
13. In mining, to draw out water from a shaft.
14. n. In mech.: A pair of teeth or pins standing out from a bar and inclosing a space within which runs the belt of a machine fitted with fast and loose pulleys. By moving the bar which carries the pins endwise the belt can be shifted.
15. n. A piece of steel fitting into the socket or chuck on a lathe, used for driving the piece to be turned.
16. n. A position, in a game of chess, where two pieces are attacked at the same time by a pawn.
17. In chess, to attack (two hostile pieces) with a pawn.

Wiktionary

1. n. A pronged tool having a long straight handle, used for digging, lifting, throwing etc.
2. n. obsolete A gallows.
3. n. A utensil with spikes used to put solid food into the mouth, or to hold food down while cutting.
4. n. A tuning fork.
5. n. An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two.
6. n. A point where a waterway, such as a river, splits and goes two (or more) different directions.
7. n. geography Used in the names of some river tributaries, e.g. West Fork White River and East Fork White River, joining together to form the White River of Indiana
8. n. figuratively A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
9. n. chess The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).
10. n. computer science A splitting-up of an existing process into itself and a child process executing parts of the same program.
11. n. computer science An event where development of some free software or open-source software is split into two or more separate projects.
12. n. UK Crotch.
13. n. colloquial A forklift.
14. n. The individual blades of a forklift.
15. n. In a bicycle, the portion holding the front wheel, allowing the rider to steer and balance.
16. v. transitive To move with a fork (as hay or food).
17. v. computer science To spawn a new child process in some sense duplicating the existing process.
18. v. computer science To split a (software) project into several projects.
19. v. UK To kick someone in the crotch.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An instrument 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 for piercing, holding, taking up, or pitching anything.
2. n. Anything furcate or like a fork in shape, or furcate at the extremity.
3. n. 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.
4. n. The place where a division or a union occurs; the angle or opening between two branches or limbs.
5. n. obsolete The gibbet.
6. v. To shoot into blades, as corn.
7. v. To divide into two or more branches.
8. v. To raise, or pitch with a fork, as hay; to dig or turn over with a fork, as the soil.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an agricultural tool used for lifting or digging; has a handle and metal prongs
2. v. place under attack with one's own pieces, of two enemy pieces
3. v. divide into two or more branches so as to form a fork
4. v. shape like a fork
5. v. lift with a pitchfork
6. n. cutlery used for serving and eating food
7. n. the region of the angle formed by the junction of two branches
8. n. the angle formed by the inner sides of the legs where they join the human trunk
9. n. the act of branching out or dividing into branches