droke
droke noun: an alley.
Noun (1)
droke (plural drokes)
- An alley.
- Off the main thoroughfare of West Street were a number of small roads and alleys, which were often called 'drokes', although this rather archaic description quite passed me by at the time. […] One of the aforementioned drokes — or call it what you will — still exists today, at Adelaide Place, […]2015, Michael Stephenson, Fareham Revisited
Noun (2)
droke (plural drokes)
- A narrow valley with steep sides, sometimes with a stream.
- I sent Fogarty forward to Foul-weather Droke to prepare for the night; while I walked to Condon Tickle and measured the breadth of it. I then went over Lower Table to the Droke; where I observed much old slot of deer, […]1792, George Cartwright, A Journal of Transactions and Events, page 210
- And how dexterously he ascended the "sculpin highlands," climbed up Job's Cove Droke, toiled through the sands at Northern Bay, waded the Northern Gut, or plodded through Short's Marsh, would furnish a theme for conversation to the weary traveller, as he sat by the cheerful evening fire, and[…]1866, William Wilson, Newfoundland and Its Missionaries: In Two Parts. To which is Added a Chronological Table of All the Important Events that Have Occurred on the Island, Cambridge, Mass. : Printed...
- A thick grove or belt of trees, especially in (and stretching across) a valley.
- In passing through a droke of woods they came up with a wigwam which they entered, and took three Indian females, which have since been found to be Mother and her two daughters. These women they brought to their own homes, where they kept them[…]1980 [1888], James Patrick Howley, The Beothucks or Red Indians, CUP Archive, page 171
- […] over the range known to the Indians as the Kesoquit Hills, and to make my outside camps in a droke of woods amongst these mountains, and another still farther to the west in another droke on Shoe Hill Ridge, in the centre of Steve's trapping-ground. Steve had told me that the latter position...1907, John Guille Millais, Newfoundland and Its Untrodden Ways, London : Longmans, Green and Company, page 277
Proper noun capitalized: Droke
Droke (plural Drokes)
- A surname.
Examples of droke in a sentence
- I tooked her [a gun] and the powder-harn and shot-bag and starts up yander through the droke.1894, The Journal of American Folklore, page 288:
- we lost sight of him entirely, as he entered a droke of woods where it was impossible to follow him any further.1912 11, Field and Stream, volume 17, page 714:
- […] tucked back in a spindly droke of woods above the harbor and away from the other houses around the bay.2011 March 29, Michael Crummey, Galore: A Novel, Other Press, LLC, →ISBN, page 38:
Forms of droke
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | drokes |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Drokes |
Origin of droke
As a term for a valley with a stream, or a stream itself, found in various dialects as droke, drock, or drook; in various dialects one or more of those words can also denote other clefts, coves, drainage ditches, and furrows, or part of a plough. Perhaps related to Old Norse or Icelandic drag (“soft slope or valley”).
Respelling of Droge.
Questions about droke
- What does droke mean?
- Droke means an alley.
- How do you use droke in a sentence?
- I tooked her [a gun] and the powder-harn and shot-bag and starts up yander through the droke.
- What part of speech is droke?
- Droke can be a noun or a proper noun.
- What is the plural of droke?
- The plural of droke is drokes.
Words near droke in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: droke (page history and authors); Droke (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “droke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/droke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.