Definition of "fork"

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

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

2. 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.

   1. Such a pronged tool having a long straight handle, generally for two-handed use, as used for digging, lifting, mucking, pitching, etc.  examples

3. A tuning fork.  examples

(by abstraction, from the tool shape) A fork in the road, as follows:

1. (physical) An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two.  examples

2. (figurative) A decision point.  examples

(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.  examples

(metonymically, and 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.  examples

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

1. (metonymically) Either of the (figurative) paths thus taken.  examples

(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.

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

2. (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.

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

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

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

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

   Quotations

   • 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

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

(Britain, vulgar) The crotch.  examples

(colloquial) A forklift.  examples

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

(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.  examples

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

(obsolete) A gallows.  quotations

(transitive, intransitive) To divide into two or more branches or copies.

1. (transitive, intransitive, computing) To spawn a new child process by duplicating the existing process.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • 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

   • 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, page 304

2. (transitive, intransitive, 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.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • 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, 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, page 77

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

   Quotations

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

     2015, Sajal Debnath, Mastering PowerCLI, Packt Publishing Ltd, page 27

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

(transitive, Britain) To kick someone in the crotch.  examples

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

(transitive) Euphemistic form of fuck.  examples

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

(mining, transitive) To bale a shaft dry.  examples