fork

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

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

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.

(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.

A fork in the road, as follows:
A decision point.

(by abstraction, 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.

a thunderbolt with three forks

this fork of the river dries up during droughts

(metonymic, 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.

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

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

(figuratively, 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.

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

(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.

LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice.

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

A content fork may be intentional (as from a schism about goals) or unintentional (merely from a lack of reorganizing, so far).

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

content management
content management system

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

by abstraction; content management; content management; content management

Known as a “fork”, the new version of bitcoin (dubbed Bitcoin XT) would support more transactions per hour, at the cost of increasing the amount of memory required to hold a full database of all the bitcoin transactions throughout history, known as the blockchain.

2015 August 17, Alex Hern, “Bitcoin's forked: chief scientist launches alternative proposal for the currency”, in The Guardian:

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

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

Are you qualified to drive a fork?

Get those forks tilted back more or you're gonna lose that pallet!

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

The fork can be equipped with a suspension on mountain bikes.

(cycling, motorcycling, 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.

The upper front brow of a saddle bow, connected in the tree by the two saddle bars to the cantle on the other end.

They had run through all punishments, and just 'scaped the fork

Sranan Tongo: forku

→ Dutch: fork

→ Japanese: フォーク (fōku)

→ Kannada: ಫೋರ್ಕ್ (phōrk)

→ Korean: 포크 (pokeu)

→ Maori: paoka

→ Tamil: போர்க் (pōrk)

→ Telugu: ఫోర్క్ (phōrk)

haara

one of the parts into which anything is furcated

tienhaara

figurative: point in time of making a decision

afsplitsing

computer science: splitting of a process

odnož

computer science: copying and separately developing a project

bifurcació

computer science: a separately developed project based upon a copy of an existing project

a three-prong spear somewhat resembling a pitchfork

From Middle English forke (“digging fork”), from Old English force, forca (“forked instrument used to torture”), from Proto-West Germanic *furkō (“fork”), from Latin furca (“pitchfork, forked stake; gallows, beam, stake, support post, yoke”), of uncertain origin. The Middle English word was later reinforced by Anglo-Norman, Old Northern French forque (= Old French forche whence French fourche), also from the Latin. Doublet of fourche and furcate. Cognate also with North Frisian forck (“fork”), Dutch vork (“fork”), Danish fork (“fork”), German Forke (“pitchfork”). Displaced native gafol, ġeafel, ġeafle (“fork”), from Old English.
In its primary sense of “fork”, Latin furca appears to be derived from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰerk(ʷ)-, *ǵʰerg(ʷ)- (“fork”), although the development of the -c- is difficult to explain. In other senses this derivation is unlikely. For these, perhaps it is connected to Proto-Germanic *furkaz, *firkalaz (“stake, stick, pole, post”), from Proto-Indo-European *perg- (“pole, post”). If so, this would relate the word to Old English forclas pl (“bolt”), Old Saxon ferkal (“lock, bolt, bar”), Old Norse forkr (“pole, staff, stick”), Norwegian fork (“stick, bat”), Swedish fork (“pole”).


fork

A parent process forks a child process, which in turn can fork other processes.

2008, Mark G. Sobell, A Practical Guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Pearson Education, →ISBN:

It appears that the shell forks a copy of itself and that this copy then forks to make each of the previous processes in the pipeline.

2013, W. Richard Stevens, Stephen A. Rago, Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment, 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, page 304:

(ambitransitive) To divide into two or more branches or copies.

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

For various reasons, McCool's server project subsequently forked, leading to the development of the Apache Web Server.

2007, Fadi P. Deek, James A. M. McHugh, Open Source: Technology and Policy, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 21:

Google forked WebKit to create the Blink project in April 2013 because they wanted to make larger-scale changes to WebKit to fit their own needs that did not align well with the WebKit project itself.

2015, Christian Bird et al., editors, The Art and Science of Analyzing Software Data, Elsevier, →ISBN, page 77:

(ambitransitive, software engineering) 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 engineering
software engineering

In this model, anyone can fork an existing repository and push changes to their personal fork.

2015, Sajal Debnath, Mastering PowerCLI, Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 27:

(transitive, software engineering) To create a copy of a distributed version control repository.

A road, a tree, or a stream forks.

forking the sheaves on the high-laden cart

1844, John Wilson, Essay on the Genius, and Character of Burns:

Brianna curbed her pang of envy as she forked her plain, low-fat, crouton-free salad niçoise into her mouth and shook her head.

2018, Maya Blake, chapter 2, in What the Greek's Money Can't Buy (Greek Bachelors), HarperCollins UK, →ISBN:

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

(transitive, British) To kick someone in the crotch.

I have known them couched up a Yard thick cover’d with an Hair-cloth and ſtirred only once a day, the Maltſer being always careful to throw the frozen outſides into the middle till the Corn begin to fork and warm in the Couch; after which time if it be not laid too thin, it will not eaſily freeze.

1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC:

(intransitive) To shoot into blades, as corn does.

They were forking each other in the back room.

en-verb

fork (third-person singular simple present forks, present participle forking, simple past and past participle forked)

forks (present singular third-person)
forking (participle present)
forked (participle past)
forked (past)

fork bomb

computer science: spawn a new child process

разклонявам

computer science: to spawn a new child process

afsplitsen

computer science: to copy and separately develop a software project


fork

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

Ultimately from Etymology 1, above, through use for various things with two or more branches. Attested in this sense from the 18th century.


fork

Forking the water, is drawing it all out; and when it is done, they say, “the mine or the water is forked;” and “the engine is in fork.”

1836 [1808], Richard Polwhele, A Cornish English Vocabulary:

(mining, transitive) To bale a shaft dry.

forks (present singular third-person)
forking (participle present)
forked (participle past)
forked (past)
forcque (alternative)