Poke Meaning
/pəʊk/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.
verbTo stir up a fire to remove ash or promote burning.
Sentence Examples
I bought a pig in a poke yesterday.
I don't mean to poke my nose into your affairs.
CEFR Practice Quiz
He used a sharp stick to slowly ____ the fire and make the flames grow.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She used a stick to ____ the fire and encourage the flames to burn more brightly.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English poken, perhaps from Middle Dutch poken or Middle Low German poken, both from Proto-West Germanic *pukōn or similar, which is itself of uncertain origin, but may be from an imitative Proto-Germanic root *puk-. Doublet of poach.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Ward showed good pace to beat the advancing Reina to the ball and poke a low finish into the corner."
— 2010 December 29, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC:
"The 200 UDGs may be used either by paging between 10 sets of 20 UDGs or, alternatively, by displaying 96 different characters by poking the system variable CHARS with 256 less than the starting address of your graphics."
— 1984 July 26, Franco Frey, “SPECGRAFFITI”, in Crash, number 6:
"If you try to poke a value outside this range into a byte, Basic will beep you with an ILLEGAL QUANTITY error."
— 1985, Tom Weishaar, Bert Kersey, The DOStalk Scrapbook, page 44:
"I find from their testimony , which was not contradicted , that the placing of such a poke upon such a colt in such a pasture is not considered dangerous, and that farmers are accustomed so to poke their own horses, but that they are not accustomed to put pokes on or 'hamper' horses owned by other persons without the authorization of the owner."
— 1883, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Vermont, page 70:
"Indeed, when we poke users who normally do not have access to our profiles, they will be able to temporarily see our Basic Info, Work Info, and Education Info."
— 2009, Alexander Tokar, Metaphors of the Web 2.0, Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 68:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
He used a sharp stick to slowly ____ the fire and make the flames grow.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She used a stick to ____ the fire and encourage the flames to burn more brightly.