fork🔊

Any of several types of (pronged) ((tined)) (tools) (physical tools), as follows:

(utensil for food) A utensil with spikes used to put solid food into the mouth, or to hold food down while cutting.

(tool for laboring) Any of several types of pronged tools for use on farms, in fields, or in the garden or lawn, such as a smaller hand fork for weeding or a larger one for turning over the soil.

# Such a pronged tool having a long straight handle, generally for two-handed use, as used for digging, lifting, mucking, pitching, etc.

(tuning fork) A tuning fork.

(fork in the road) (by abstraction, from the tool shape) A fork in the road, as follows:

(physical) An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two.

(figurative) A (decision point).

(fork in a stream) (from the tool shape) A point where a waterway, such as a river or other stream, splits and flows into two (or more) different directions.

(prong analogue) (analogous to any prong of a pronged tool) 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. +

(decision-making) (decision-making) A point in time where one has to make a decision between two life paths.

(metonymically) Either of the (figurative) paths thus taken.

(process) {{anchor|process}} (by abstraction, from a physical fork) (software development, content management, data management) A departure from having a single source of truth (SSOT), sometimes intentionally but usually unintentionally.

(metonymically) Any of the pieces/versions (of software, content, or data sets) thus created.

(software) (software) The launch of one or more separate software development efforts based upon a modified copy of an existing project, especially in free and open-source software.

# (software) Any of the software projects resulting from the launch of such separate software development efforts based upon a copy of the original project.

(content management) (content management) The splitting of the coverage of a topic (within a corpus of content) into two or more pieces.

# (content management) Any of the pieces/versions of content thus created.

(cryptocurrency) (cryptocurrency) A split in a blockchain resulting from protocol disagreements, or a branch of the blockchain resulting from such a split.

(chess) (chess) The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).

(crotch vulgarly) (vulgar) The crotch. {{rfex|en}}

(forklift colloquially) (colloquial) A forklift.

(fork on a forklift) Either of the blades of a forklift (or, in plural, the set of blades), on which the goods to be raised are loaded.

(vehicle suspension part) (by abstraction from a pronged tool's shape) 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.

(item of horse tack) (Horse tack) The upper front brow of a saddle bow, connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end. +

(file systems) A set of data associated with an individual file in some file systems.

(gallows obsoletely) (obsolete) A gallows.

To divide into two or more branches or copies.

(computing) To spawn a new child process by duplicating the existing process.

(software development) To launch a separate software development effort based upon a modified copy of an existing software project, especially in free and open-source software.

(software development) To create a copy of a distributed version control repository.

To move with a fork (as hay or food).

(British) To kick someone in the crotch.

To shoot into blades, as corn does.

(chess) To simultaneously attack two opposing pieces with a single attacking piece.

(fuck).

(mining) The bottom of a sump into which the water of a mine drains.

To bale a shaft dry.