different between brake vs spoke

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: br?k, IPA^(key): /b?e?k/
• Rhymes: -e?k
• Homophone: break

Etymology 1

Apparently a shortened form of bracken. (Compare chick, chicken.)

Noun

brake (plural brakes)

1. A fern; bracken. [from 14th c.]

Translations

Etymology 2

From Old English bracu, first attested in plural form fearnbraca (“thickets of fern”), probably from Proto-Germanic *brekan? (“to break”) and influenced by sense 1 (“fern”). Compare Middle Low German brake (“stump, branch”).

Noun

brake (plural brakes)

1. A thicket, or an area overgrown with briers etc. [from 15th c.]
   • He halts, and searches with his eyes

     Among the scatter'd rocks:

     And now at distance can discern

     A stirring in a brake of fern […]

   • 1859, George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Chapter 5:

     The bird, with its fellow in the break, drummed, and whirred, and to the misfortune of its species made its plumage seem a prize to them.

Derived terms

• cypress brake

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
• “brake”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, ?ISBN

Etymology 3

Late Middle English, from Middle Low German brake, Dutch braak, Old Dutch braeke; possibly related to sense 4.

Noun

brake (plural brakes)

1. A tool used for breaking flax or hemp. [from 15th c.]
2. A type of machine for bending sheet metal. (See wikipedia.)
3. A large, heavy harrow for breaking clods after ploughing; a drag.

Translations

Verb

brake (third-person singular simple present brakes, present participle braking, simple past and past participle braked)

1. (transitive) To bruise and crush; to knead

2. (transitive) To pulverise with a harrow

Derived terms

• brakeage

Translations

Etymology 4

Origin uncertain; possibly from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German brake (“nose ring, curb, flax brake”), which according to Watkins is related to sense 3 and from Proto-Germanic *brekan? (“to break”).

Alternative forms

• break (rare)

Noun

brake (plural brakes)

1. (military) An ancient engine of war analogous to the crossbow and ballista.
   1. (obsolete) The winch of a crossbow. [14th-19th c.]
2. (chiefly nautical) The handle of a pump.

   Synonym: swipe

3. A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or aerodynamic drag, can also be used); also, the controls or apparatus used to engage such a mechanism such as the pedal in a car. [from 18th c.]
   1. The act of braking, of using a brake to slow down a machine or vehicle

   2. (engineering) An apparatus for testing the power of a steam engine or other motor by weighing the amount of friction that the motor will overcome; a friction brake.
   3. (figuratively) Something used to retard or stop some action, process etc.
4. A baker's kneading trough.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

5. A device used to confine or prevent the motion of an animal.
   1. A frame for confining a refractory horse while the smith is shoeing him.
   2. An enclosure to restrain cattle, horses, etc.
      • 1868, March 7, The Illustrated London News, number 1472, volume 52, “Law and Police”, page 223:

        He was shooting, and the field where the [cock-fighting] ring was verged on the shooting-brake where the rabbits were.

   3. A cart or carriage without a body, used in breaking in horses.^W
   4. A carriage for transporting shooting parties and their equipment.^W
6. That part of a carriage, as of a movable battery, or engine, which enables it to turn.

Translations

Derived terms

Descendants

• Portuguese: breque

Verb

brake (third-person singular simple present brakes, present participle braking, simple past and past participle braked)

1. (intransitive) To operate (a) brake(s).
2. (intransitive) To be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking.

Synonyms

• (to operate brakes):
• (to be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking): See also Thesaurus:stop

Antonyms

• (to operate brakes): floor it, put the pedal to the metal, redline
• (to be stopped or slowed (as if) by braking): accelerate

Translations

Etymology 5

Origin uncertain.

Noun

brake (plural brakes)

1. (obsolete) A cage. [16th-17th c.]
2. (now historical) A type of torture instrument. [from 16th c.]
   • 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin 2012, p. 83:

     Methods of applying pain were many and ingenious, in particular the ways of twisting, stretching and manipulating the body out of shape, normally falling under the catch-all term of the rack, or the brakes.

Etymology 6

Inflected forms.

Verb

brake

1. (archaic) simple past tense of break

Anagrams

• Abrek, Baker, baker, barke, break

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

brake

1. (archaic) singular past subjunctive of breken
2. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of braken

Anagrams

• baker

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: sp?k, IPA^(key): /sp??k/
• Rhymes: -??k
• Hyphenation: spoke

Etymology 1

From Middle English spoke, spok, spook, from Old English sp?ca, from Proto-Germanic *spaik?.

Noun

spoke (plural spokes)

1. A support structure that connects the axle or the hub of a wheel to the rim.
2. (nautical) A projecting handle of a steering wheel.
3. A rung of a ladder.
4. A device for fastening the wheel of a vehicle to prevent it from turning when going downhill.
5. One of the outlying points in a hub-and-spoke model of transportation.

Derived terms

• hub-and-spoke

Translations

Verb

spoke (third-person singular simple present spokes, present participle spoking, simple past and past participle spoked)

1. (transitive) To furnish (a wheel) with spokes.

Further reading

• spoke on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

Verb

spoke

1. simple past tense of speak
2. (now colloquial, nonstandard) past participle of speak

Anagrams

• kepos, pokes, posek

Afrikaans

Noun

spoke

1. plural of spook

Dutch

Verb

spoke

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of spoken

Middle English

Alternative forms

• spook, spok, spak, spake

Etymology

From Old English sp?ca, from Proto-Germanic *spaik?.

Pronunciation

• (Northern ME, Early ME) IPA^(key): /?sp??k(?)/
• IPA^(key): /?sp??k(?)/

Noun

spoke (plural spokes or spoken)

1. A spoke (support radiating from the middle of a wheel)
2. A sharp spike or projection on the edge of a wheel.

Descendants

• English: spoke
• Scots: spaik

References

• “sp?k(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-12.