poke

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“
The dust in the poke is all we secured.

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Definitions (62)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (19)

  1. transitive verb To push or jab at, as with a finger or an arm; prod.
  2. transitive verb To make (a hole or pathway, for example) by or as if by prodding, elbowing, or jabbing: I poked my way to the front of the crowd.
  3. transitive verb To push; thrust: A seal poked its head out of the water.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (28)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (5)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (10)

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Examples (50)

  • How could anybody sleep in here His poke, a Martian potato sack, was on the deck. —  Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2002
  • The poke in pig in a poke is an archaic word for "bag" or "sack." —  The Word Detective
  • "Nobody wants to pay for a pig in a poke, that is, to give people money without knowing what they are getting". —  Stabroek News
  • You should poke it in his eye_--poke it in his eye, man!' —  The History of "Punch"
  • Your mother and father will be cold when they get in Warren gave the burned log a poke, and it fell in two ends, neither dropping over the andirons. —  A Little Girl in Old Boston
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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

jab ·  shove ·  nip ·  prod ·  nudge ·  kick ·  slap ·  swipe ·  punch ·  squeeze ·  dig ·  tweak

Used in the same contextWord Family

poke:   poked ·  poking ·  pokes
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (8)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. Middle English poken, probably from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch.
  2. From poke1.
  3. Middle English, probably from Old North French; see pocket.
  4. Short for dialectal pocan, of Virginia Algonquian origin; akin to puccoon.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English poken, pouken, pukken = Dutch poken = Middle Low German Low German poken, poke, = Walloon poquer, knock: cf. Dutch pook, Middle Low German pōk, Low German poke, a dagger; Swedish påk, a stick; prob. of Celtic origin: Gaelic puc, push, Irish poc, a blow, kick, = Cornish poc, a shove. Hence the assibilated form poach.
  2. from poke, v.
  3. from Middle English poke, also irreg. palke = Middle Dutch poke (later Old French poque, pouque, assibilated poche, pouchc, later Middle English pouche, English pouch), a bag, = lcel. poki, a bag; prob. of Celtic origin, from Ir.poc, Gaelic poca, a bag. Cf. Anglo-Saxon poha, pohha, a purse, etc. Hence ult. pocket, pucker. Cf. the doublet pouch. No connection with Anglo-Saxon pung, a bag, = Icelandic pungr, a pouch, purse, = Gothic (Moesogothic) puggs, a bag.
  4. Also pocan; apparently American Indian
 

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/poʊk/
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