forks

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of fork.

   The caterers polished the forks until they gleamed under the lights.

   Several forks branch off the main river before it reaches the sea.

   Note

   One plural serves a whole family of meanings: table utensils, garden and farm tools, tuning forks, and the places where a road or path splits in two. Figuratively it also counts decision points, so a life can have its forks just as a road does. The same spelling is a verb form too. In "the forks in the road" it is a noun, but in "the road forks" it is the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of fork.

   The highway forks into two lanes a mile before the tunnel.

   Every evening the farmer forks fresh hay into the horses' stalls.

   Note

   Here the verb works both with and without an object. A road or river forks on its own. A farmhand forks hay, and in computing a program forks a child process or a developer forks a project or repository. The object is the clue: with nothing after it, the form means splitting. With something after it, it means moving or copying that thing. Its look-alike is the plural noun.

   The trail forks just past the bridge.

   Each night the server forks a fresh worker process.

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