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

It became clear as we spoke that Dan was the real talker.

From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026

Experts and couples interviewed by AFP spoke of a combination of factors, including longer educations and growing professional ambitions among women, along with rising divorce rates and financial strain on young professionals.

From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026

Villarreal: What was it about “The Testaments” that spoke to you and made you want to tackle the material?

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

"I spoke to him all the way through the World Cup, not loads, but little bits," he said.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026

“We came from the White House. Wilson himself spoke from the Rose Garden balcony.”

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

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

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

The decision to close the three Austin, San Antonio and Miami spokes will not impact these larger facilties or any other cross-docking locations, Kroger’s spokesperson said.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2024

The prison’s design, five long cellblocks that meet at a rotunda like spokes of a wheel, was inspired by the famous Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 12, 2024

Other bushes were laden with purpling currants; butterflies abounded; and at every step grasshoppers whirred off, some crackling like the snappers kids placed against their bicycle tire spokes.

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols

On a recent episode of What Next, I spoked with McNeill about whether going inside the Bat Lands could help prevent the next outbreak.

From Slate ● May 30, 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

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

In 14 years wearing the spoked “B,” Chara was named the league’s top defenseman in ’09 and five other times finished in the top five.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 29, 2021

With his handkerchief he polishes the spoked hubcaps and the headlamps; he kicks mud off the running board, cleans the windows and windshield.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

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 David Laing