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fork

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

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4 characters

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English

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "fork", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "fork" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "fork" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

fork is aEnglishnoun. It means: Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows: Pronounced /fɔːk/. It ranks #6,788 in English word frequency. Often confused with fox and fur.

Key facts for fork
PropertyValue
Headwordfork
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/fɔːk/
Letters4
Frequency rank#6,788
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of fork in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for fork is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fɔːk/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,788 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 24 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for fork, with forms such as "ffork", "fokr", and "forkk". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "fox", "fur", "fry", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English forke (“digging fork”), from Old English force, forca (“forked instrument used to torture”), from Proto-West Germanic *furkō (“fork”), from Latin furca (“pitchfork, forked stake; gallows, beam, stake, support post, yoke”), of uncertain o… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is fork, spelled F-O-R-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows:
  2. 2
    Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows:
  3. 3
    Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows:
  4. 4
    Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows:
  5. 5
    A fork in the road, as follows:
  6. 6
    A fork in the road, as follows:
  7. 7
    A point where a waterway, such as a river or other stream, splits and flows into two (or more) different directions.
  8. 8
    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.
  9. 9
    A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
  10. 10
    A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.
  11. 11
    (software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.
  12. 12
    (software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.
  13. 13
    (software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.
  14. 14
    (software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.
  15. 15
    (software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.
  16. 16
    (software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.
  17. 17
    The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).
  18. 18
    The crotch.
  19. 19
    A forklift.
  20. 20
    Either of the blades of a forklift (or, in plural, the set of blades), on which the goods to be raised are loaded.
  21. 21
    In a bicycle or motorcycle, the portion of the frameset holding the front wheel, allowing the rider to steer and balance, also called front fork.
  22. 22
    The upper front brow of a saddle bow, connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.
  23. 23
    A set of data associated with an individual file in some file systems.
  24. 24
    A gallows.

Etymology

From Middle English forke (“digging fork”), from Old English force, forca (“forked instrument used to torture”), from Proto-West Germanic *furkō (“fork”), from Latin furca (“pitchfork, forked stake; gallows, beam, stake, support post, yoke”), of uncertain origin. The Middle English word was later reinforced by Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French forque (= Old French forche whence French fourche), also from the Latin. Doublet of fourche and furcate. Cognate also with North Frisian forck (“fork”), Dutch vork (“fork”), Danish fork (“fork”), German Forke (“pitchfork”). Displaced native gafol, ġeafel, ġeafle (“fork”), from Old English. In its primary sense of “fork”, Latin furca appears to be derived from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰerk(ʷ)-, *ǵʰerg(ʷ)- (“fork”), although the development of the -c- is difficult to explain. In other senses this derivation is unlikely. For these, perhaps it is connected to Proto-Germanic *furkaz, *firkalaz (“stake, stick, pole, post”), from Proto-Indo-European *perg- (“pole, post”). If so, this would relate the word to Old English forclas pl (“bolt”), Old Saxon ferkal (“lock, bolt, bar”), Old Norse forkr (“pole, staff, stick”), Norwegian fork (“stick, bat”), Swedish fork (“pole”).

This word in other languages

Spanish(Español)Portuguese(Português)French(Français)German(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ffork,fokr,forkk,forrk,frok,ofrk

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for fork

Misspelling Variants of "fork"

ffork5fokr4forkk5forrk5frok4ofrk4
Misspelling Variants of "fork"

Frequency rank: #6,788 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "fork"?
"fork" is spelled F-O-R-K. The IPA pronunciation is /fɔːk/.
What does "fork" mean?
As a noun, "fork" means: Any of several types of pronged (tined) tools (physical tools), as follows:
What words are commonly confused with "fork"?
"fork" is commonly confused with "fox", "fur", "fry". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "fork"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "fork" is /fɔːk/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "fork"?
From Middle English forke (“digging fork”), from Old English force, forca (“forked instrument used to torture”), from Proto-West Germanic *furkō (“fork”), from Latin furca (“pitchfork, forked stake; gallows, beam, stake, support post, yoke”), of u... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter F in our English index:

All "F" wordsABCDEFGHIJKL

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.