Definition of "strake"

The separate pieces of iron, forming together the fitting of the wheel, are called strakes, and the great nails by which they are fastened to the woodwork, and which had thick projecting heads, are called strake-nails and occasionally, it seems, cart-nails, great nails, or frets.

1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 544

Iron strakes were the separate plates fitted to a cart wheel before the use of the iron ring or tyre.

1971, George Ewart Evans, Tools of Their Trades: An Oral History of Men at Work c. 1900‎, Taplinger Publishing Company, page 42

With regard to materials, all the frames should be of oak and so should the stem piece, stern post, upper portion of dead woods, knight heads, apron, beams, shelf clamp, bilge strakes, and keelson; the keel will generally be found to be either English or American elm. The garboard strakes are generally of American elm, and it is best that the planking above should be of American elm or oak to within a foot or so of the load water-line, and teak above to the covering board or deck edge.

1884, Dixon Kemp, A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing (Fourth Edition), pages 13–14

You felt the power of the Olympic's twenty-nine boilers transmitted upward through the strakes of the hull.

2003, Erik Larson, “Prologue: Aboard the Olympic”, in The Devil in the White City, Vintage Books, page 6

And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut[sic] tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Genesis 30:37

His burning eyen, whom bloody strakes did staine

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

Hayle Groome; didst not thou see a bleeding Hind, / Whose right haunch earst my stedfast arrow strake?

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 32

But, when he strake — which came so thick as if every blow would strive to be foremost — his arm seemed still a postillion of death.

a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the page number)”, in Fulke Greville, Matthew Gwinne, and John Florio, editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590; republished in Albert Feuillerat, editor, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia (Cambridge English Classics: The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney; I), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1912,

But when of Eglantine he spake, / His strings melodiously he strake.

c. 1590-1599', Arthur Gorges, Eglantine of Meryfleur