fork
n. countablen. a tool with a handle and sharp points that you use to pick up and eat food.
n. an implement for eating or serving food, consisting of a handle and several pointed prongs, known as tines.
I need a knife and fork.
Please set the table with a knife, fork, and spoon for each guest.
The formal dinner setting required not only a standard dinner fork but also a smaller, more delicate salad fork placed to its left.
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”).
Ultimately from Etymology 1, above, through use for various things with two or more branches. Attested in this sense from the 18th century.
Also commonly refers to a point where a road, path, or river divides into two or more branches.