Showing results for "spoke"

• past tense form of speak.

spoke

¹ American  

[spohk] / spoʊk /

verb

1. a simple past tense of speak.

2. Nonstandard. a past participle of speak.

3. Archaic. a past participle of speak.

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spoke ² American  

[spohk] / spoʊk /

noun

spokes plural

1. one of the bars, rods, or rungs radiating from the hub or nave of a wheel and supporting the rim or felloe.

2. something that resembles the spoke of a wheel.

3. a handlelike projection from the rim of a wheel, as a ship's steering wheel.

4. a rung of a ladder.

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verb (used with object)

spoked, spoking

1. to fit or furnish with or as with spokes.

spoke ¹ British  

/ spəʊk /

noun

1. a radial member of a wheel, joining the hub to the rim

2. a radial projection from the rim of a wheel, as in a ship's wheel

3. a rung of a ladder

4. to thwart someone's plans

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verb

1. (tr) to equip with or as if with spokes

spoke ² British  

/ spəʊk /

verb

1. the past tense of speak

2. archaic a past participle of speak

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• spokeless
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• spokes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of spoke

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English spāca; cognate with Dutch speek, German Speiche

Explanation

A spoke is a bar or rod that connects the center of a wheel to its rim. The purpose of spokes is to support the structure of the wheel. You can jazz up your bike by weaving ribbons between the spokes. Originally, spoke meant "a piece of a split log." When wagon wheels were made of wood, they were formed using these spokes, which were carved into matching shapes. Wheels with spokes were invented around 2000 B.C.E. or even earlier, and they revolutionized travel, making vehicles lighter and faster. Experts believe that spoke shares a root with spike.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

spoke spokes spoked spoking

Slate spoke with a number of surviving family members of some of the martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement, all of whom were devastated by the court’s Callais ruling.

From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026

His voice cracked as he spoke about his two friends and the impact their loss has had on him.

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

Graham let the crew stay in the room for sensitive meetings, and some of the people Graham spoke with by phone told the Journal they didn’t know the calls were being recorded.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

He later spoke outside a church service that paid tribute to victims, where he pledged to "defend the freedom and openness of our lives".

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

She must have seen the tears rolling down my cheeks as she spoke more softly.

From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler

Since World War II the alliance had worked like a wheel: The U.S. as the indispensable hub and the rest as spokes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026

Which it achieves by connecting to us like the spokes of a wheel.

From Salon ● Feb. 25, 2025

Itoje was a menace around the breakdown, turning over ball and putting a spanner in Scotland's attacking spokes as the referee let play flow.

From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2025

When I caught up to him again at Sepulveda, I told him his back wheel needed new spokes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 8, 2024

They measured the spokes, making certain they were of identical lengths, then wrapped a thread that turned the spokes into an eight-angled star with a perfect center.

From "Tasting the Sky" by Ibtisam Barakat

So, on Tuesday’s episode oof What Next, I spoked to Jeff Goodell about what we’re going to do about it.

From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2023

By 4000 years ago, the new horse dominated a region from central Anatolia to central Russia, where people of the Sintashta culture buried horses with the earliest spoked wheels and chariots in mounds called kurgans.

From Science Magazine ● Oct. 20, 2021

“It’s hard to put into words what it means to wear the spoked ‘B,’” he wrote.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 14, 2021

I also spoked with NBA commissioner Adam Silver andasked him if he would ever punish a player for speaking out on something that Silver personally disagrees with.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 17, 2021

It was a house that we knew, having admired the large white wheelbarrow tilted down on spoked wheels and planted with seasonal flowers.

From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison

In "Miniature," flowers are magnified to astronomical proportions: One dandelion is yellow, is a solar flame spoking from a green nether rim; the other gray, a dainty crumb-cake of a moon.

From Time Magazine Archive

Souilly was barely a hamlet surrounded by farmland, a cluster of small cottages spoking out like a wheel from a modest stone town hall.

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

A large piece of graphed paper containing a design for an outdoor space: a fountain in the middle and pebble pathways spoking out from it.

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

Your Lordschip knawis weall the man: he hes spoking with your Lordschip: I thought yow content with him.

From The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) by Laing, David