Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To stir up and feed (a fire or furnace).
  • intransitive verb To feed fuel to and tend the fire of (a furnace).
  • intransitive verb To feed or tend a furnace or fire.
  • intransitive verb Informal To eat steadily and in large quantities.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To pierce; stick; thrust.
  • To poke, stir up, and maintain the fire in (a furnace, especially one used with a boiler for the generation of steam for an engine); supply with fuel; trim and maintain combustion in.
  • To attend to and supply a furnace with fuel; act as a stoker or fireman.

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

  • transitive verb obsolete To stick; to thrust; to stab.
  • transitive verb To poke or stir up, as a fire; hence, to tend, as the fire of a furnace, boiler, etc.
  • intransitive verb To poke or stir up a fire; hence, to tend the fires of furnaces, steamers, etc.

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

  • verb transitive To pierce; poke; thrust.
  • verb transitive To stir up and feed, especially, a fire or furnace.
  • verb intransitive To attend to and supply a furnace with fuel; act as a stoker or fireman.
  • noun physics A unit of kinematic viscosity equal to that of a fluid with a viscosity of one poise and a density of one gram per millilitre

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

  • verb stir up or tend; of a fire

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Back-formation from stoker.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English stoken, from Middle Dutch stoken ("to thrust, poke") or Middle Low German stoken ("to thrust, poke"), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *stukōnan (“to be stiff, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teug- (“to push, beat”). Cognate with Middle High German stoken ("to pierce, jab"), Norwegian Nynorsk stauka ("to push, thrust"). Alternative etymology derives the Middle English word from Old French estoquer, estochier ("to thrust, strike"), from the same Germanic source. More at stock.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a back-formation of stoker, apparently from Dutch stoker, from Dutch stoken ("to kindle a fire, incite, instigate"), from Middle Dutch stoken ("to thrust, poke"), from stock ("stick, stock, rapier"), see: tandenstoker. Ultimately the same word as above.

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Examples

  • In what he calls a stoke of luck, Gore purchased the rare car off eBay.

    Payson Roundup stories < 2010

  • The dragon kiln has 17 holes throughout the entire length of its body called stoke holes which the kiln operator uses during firing for observation and feeding of wood fuel.

    Museum Blogs 2008

  • Who remembers that team called stoke that beat us 2-0.

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  • So he's trying to kind of stoke the passion among Iowa voters.

    CNN Transcript Dec 22, 2007 2007

  • So he's trying to kind of stoke the passion among Iowa voters.

    CNN Transcript Dec 23, 2007 2007

  • COLLINS: And so, Nic, the presence of the government's army or law enforcement, the folks that we are seeing out there, to try to put an end to this, is that helping to kind of stoke the fire?

    CNN Transcript Jan 25, 2007 2007

  • One angry Tory MP accused the Liberal Democrat leader - who is in charge of the Government constitutional reform programme - of trying to "stoke" the vote in favour of introducing the alternative vote (AV) system for Westminster elections.

    Evening Standard - Home 2010

  • They routinely tell individuals to snack in order to maintain their blood sugar levels and to "stoke" their metabolism with fuel.

    Business News and Business Products, Services, Reports and Advertising. Business News RSS Feed. 2009

  • You are stoked now! stoke, meaning like a chimney fire.

    Blogger News Network 2009

  • He thought the elites looked down at him because he had come up the hard way, and with his speechwriter Pat Buchanan he knew how to stoke the resentments in Middle America.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

Comments

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  • According to dictionary.com this can be 'a unit of kinematic viscosity, equal to the viscosity of a fluid in poises divided by the density of the fluid in grams per cubic centimeter'.

    September 24, 2008

  • The Potters.

    September 24, 2008

  • Yo mama.

    September 25, 2008