spoke

Formsspokes, spoking, spoked

Pluralspokes

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense of speak.

   The senator spoke at length before the committee adjourned.

   Few delegates spoke against the proposal during the session.

   Note

   Here the word belongs to speak, not to the wheel. Old English had spæc for this past, and Middle English wrote it in many ways, including speke, spake and spoke, before spoke became the surviving form. In standard English today it serves only as the simple past (she spoke). After have or be the form is spoken, and spoke used as a participle is archaic or nonstandard.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A support bar connecting the hub or axle of a wheel to its outer rim.

   The mechanic replaced a bent spoke on the front wheel.

   Wire spokes give a bicycle wheel its strength while keeping it light.

   Note

   Two unrelated words share this spelling. The wheel word goes back to Old English spāca and is a cousin of Dutch spaak and of English spike, while the past tense of speak has a separate history. W. F. Grew's The Cycle Industry (1921) supplies the older wheelwright's vocabulary: wooden spokes tapered and wedged together at the nave, or hub, with their outer ends set into slots in the felloe, the wooden rim.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A crossbar on a ladder used as a step; a rung.

   She gripped a higher spoke and pulled herself onto the roof.

   The wooden spokes of the ladder were worn smooth from years of use.

   Similarrung, step

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An outlying point in a hub-and-spoke transportation network, connected to a central hub.

   Each regional depot serves as a spoke routing packages through the central hub.

   Airlines designed their networks so that distant spokes all feed one hub.

   Oppositehub

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A projecting handle on the rim of a steering wheel, especially a ship's wheel.

   The helmsman gripped a spoke to hold the ship on course.

   Polished brass spokes ringed the captain's heavy wheel.

   Note

   Seamanship gives the word a hands-on meaning. On a ship's wheel the spokes run out past the rim and end in handles, so the helmsman grips the spoke itself rather than the rim. Those projecting handles give the fine leverage needed to control the rudder, which is why steering a vessel is described in terms of spokes and not just the wheel.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A stick thrust into the wheel of a cart or wagon to keep the wheel from turning.

   On the steep track he wedged a spoke between the rim and the frame to slow the wagon.

   The carter always carried a stout spoke to lock the wheels on hills.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To provide a wheel with spokes by fitting them into the hub and rim.

   The wheelwright will spoke the rim and then true it on the lathe.

   Apprentices learn to spoke a wheel before they attempt to build a full cart.

   Note

   The verb is regular, and that keeps it apart from speak. Its past tense and past participle are both spoked, and its present participle is spoking. A wheel that has been fitted this way is a spoked wheel, and the wheelwright spoked it, never spoke it. That form belongs to the past of speak.

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