Fork
from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
fork
n 1: cutlery used for serving and eating food
2: the act of branching out or dividing into branches [syn:
{branching}, {ramification}, {fork}, {forking}]
3: the region of the angle formed by the junction of two
branches; "they took the south fork"; "he climbed into the
crotch of a tree" [syn: {fork}, {crotch}]
4: an agricultural tool used for lifting or digging; has a
handle and metal prongs
5: the angle formed by the inner sides of the legs where they
join the human trunk [syn: {crotch}, {fork}]
v 1: lift with a pitchfork; "pitchfork hay" [syn: {pitchfork},
{fork}]
2: place under attack with one's own pieces, of two enemy pieces
3: divide into two or more branches so as to form a fork; "The
road forks" [syn: {branch}, {ramify}, {fork}, {furcate},
{separate}]
4: shape like a fork; "She forked her fingers"
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Fork \Fork\ (f[^o]rk), n. [AS. forc, fr. L. furca. Cf.
{Fourch['e]}, {Furcate}.]
1. 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.
[1913 Webster]
2. Anything furcate or like a fork in shape, or furcate at
the extremity; as, a tuning fork.
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3. 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.
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Let it fall . . . though the fork invade
The region of my heart. --Shak.
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A thunderbolt with three forks. --Addison.
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4. The place where a division or a union occurs; the angle or
opening between two branches or limbs; as, the fork of a
river, a tree, or a road.
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5. The gibbet. [Obs.] --Bp. Butler.
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{Fork beam} (Shipbuilding), a half beam to support a deck,
where hatchways occur.
{Fork chuck} (Wood Turning), a lathe center having two prongs
for driving the work.
{Fork head}.
(a) The barbed head of an arrow.
(b) The forked end of a rod which forms part of a knuckle
joint.
{In fork}. (Mining) A mine is said to be in fork, or an
engine to "have the water in fork," when all the water is
drawn out of the mine. --Ure.
{The forks of a river} or {The forks of a road}, the branches
into which it divides, or which come together to form it;
the place where separation or union takes place.
[1913 Webster]
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Bracket \Brack"et\, n. [Cf. OF. braguette codpiece, F. brayette,
Sp. bragueta, also a projecting mold in architecture; dim.
fr. L. bracae breeches; cf. also, OF. bracon beam, prop,
support; of unknown origin. Cf. {Breeches}.]
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1. (Arch.) An architectural member, plain or ornamental,
projecting from a wall or pier, to support weight falling
outside of the same; also, a decorative feature seeming to
discharge such an office.
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Note: This is the more general word. See {Brace},
{Cantalever}, {Console}, {Corbel}, {Strut}.
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2. (Engin. & Mech.) A piece or combination of pieces, usually
triangular in general shape, projecting from, or fastened
to, a wall, or other surface, to support heavy bodies or
to strengthen angles.
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3. (Naut.) A shot, crooked timber, resembling a knee, used as
a support.
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4. (Mil.) The cheek or side of an ordnance carriage.
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5. (Print.) One of two characters [], used to inclose a
reference, explanation, or note, or a part to be excluded
from a sentence, to indicate an interpolation, to rectify
a mistake, or to supply an omission, and for certain other
purposes; -- called also {crotchet}.
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6. A gas fixture or lamp holder projecting from the face of a
wall, column, or the like.
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7. (Gunnery) A figure determined by firing a projectile
beyond a target and another short of it, as a basis for
ascertaining the proper elevation of the piece; -- only
used in the phrase, to establish a bracket. After the
bracket is established shots are fired with intermediate
elevations until the exact range is obtained. In the
United States navy it is called {fork}.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
{Bracket light}, a gas fixture or a lamp attached to a wall,
column, etc.
[1913 Webster]
from
The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906)
FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead
animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this
purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many
advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether
reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of
these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking
proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.
from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
fork
In the open-source community, a fork is what occurs when two (or more)
versions of a software package's source code are being developed in
parallel which once shared a common code base, and these multiple
versions of the source code have irreconcilable differences between
them. This should not be confused with a development branch, which may
later be folded back into the original source code base. Nor should it
be confused with what happens when a new distribution of Linux or some
other distribution is created, because that largely assembles pieces
than can and will be used in other distributions without conflict.
Forking is uncommon; in fact, it is so uncommon that individual
instances loom large in hacker folklore. Notable in this class were
the Emacs/XEmacs fork, the GCC/EGCS fork (later healed by a merger)
and the forks among the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD operating
systems.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
fork
<operating system> A {Unix} {system call} used by a {process}
(the "parent") to make a copy (the "child") of itself. The
child process is identical to the parent except it has a
different {process identifier} and a zero return value from
the fork call. It is assumed to have used no resources.
A fork followed by an {exec} can be used to start a different
process but this can be inefficient and some later Unix
variants provide {vfork} as an alternative mechanism for this.
See also {fork bomb}.
(1996-12-08)
from
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
162 Moby Thesaurus words for "fork":
L, V, affluent, angle, angle off, apex, bail, bayou, bend,
bifurcate, bifurcation, bight, billabong, bine, bisect, bough,
bowl, branch, branch out, branchedness, branchiness, bucket,
burgeon, by two, cant, cast, catapult, chevron, chuck, chunk,
cleave, coin, confluent, confluent stream, corner, crank, crook,
crotch, crotchet, crutch, cup, cut in two, cutlery, dart, dash,
deadwood, decant, deflection, delta, dendritic drainage pattern,
dichotomize, dimidiate, dining utensils, dip, dish, dish out,
dish up, divaricate, divide, dogleg, effluent, elbow, ell, fan,
feeder, fire, fission, flagellum, flat silver, flatware, fling,
flip, forks, frond, furcate, furcation, furcula, furculum, groin,
halve, heave, hollow ware, hook, hurl, hurtle, in half, inflection,
inguen, jerk, knee, knives, ladle, lance, launch, let fly, limb,
lob, nook, offshoot, pass, peg, pelt, pitch, pitchfork, point,
pour, prong, put, put the shot, quoin, ramage, ramification,
ramify, runner, sarment, scion, scoop, serve, shoot, shovel, shy,
silver, silver plate, silverware, sling, slip, snap, spade, spear,
split in two, spoon, spoons, spray, sprig, sprit, sprout,
stainless-steel ware, stem, stolon, subdivide, sucker, swerve,
switch, tablespoon, tableware, teaspoon, tendril, thallus, throw,
tilt, toss, transect, tributary, trident, trifurcate, twig, veer,
vertex, wishbone, zag, zig, zigzag
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