spoke1
/spəʊk
/noun
1Each of the bars or wire rods connecting the centre of a wheel to its outer edge.A large, open circle at the front connects with an outside wheel by means of spokes, some straight and some angled, which have been painted yellow, orange, green or black....
- China may only have blunt weapons with which to handle overheating - the economic equivalent of pushing a walking stick into the spokes of a bicycle's front wheel.
- It was in this act of destruction, where the spokes of the bicycle splintered off, that I came to know the material.
1.1Each of a set of radial handles projecting from a ship’s wheel.
1.2Each of the metal rods in an umbrella to which the material is attached.The umbrella, with its protective cloth stripped off and the spokes spread uselessly in the air, is thus a poignant and recurrent emblem of the dangers that lie in the rift between words and objects.
Phrases
put a spoke in someone's wheel
Derivatives
spoked
[in combination]: a wire-spoked wheel
spokewise
Origin
Old English spāca, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch speek, German Speiche, from the base of spike1.
In the sense ‘a bar or rod connecting the centre of a wheel to its edge’, spoke is an Old English word, related to spike. It appears in the slightly puzzling expression put a spoke in someone's wheel. This means ‘to prevent someone from carrying out a plan’, but since wheels are supposed to have spokes it does not appear to make a lot of sense. It is probably a mistranslation of Dutch een spaak in 'twiel steeken, ‘to put a bar in the wheel’—the image that should come to mind is of a bar being stuck into a wheel to stop it turning properly.
Rhymes
spoke2
/spəʊk/ Past of speak.