Word.ws English Dictionary

poke

/pəʊk/US/poʊk/

poke verb: to prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.

Verb

poke (third-person singular simple present pokes, present participle poking, simple past and past participle poked)

  1. To prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.
    • Ward showed good pace to beat the advancing Reina to the ball and poke a low finish into the corner.2010 December 29, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC
  2. To stir up a fire to remove ash or promote burning.
  3. (figuratively) To rummage; to feel or grope around.
    • I poked about in the rubble, trying to find my lost keys.
  4. (dated, transitive) To modify the value stored in (a memory address).
    • The 200 UDGs may be used either by paging between 10 sets of 20 UDGs or, alternatively, by displaying 96 different characters by poking the system variable CHARS with 256 less than the starting address of your graphics.1984 July, Franco Frey, “SPECGRAFFITI”, in Crash, number 6
    • If you try to poke a value outside this range into a byte, Basic will beep you with an ILLEGAL QUANTITY error.1985, Tom Weishaar, Bert Kersey, The DOStalk Scrapbook, page 44
  5. (transitive) To put a poke (device to prevent leaping or breaking fences) on (an animal).
    • to poke an ox
    • I find from their testimony , which was not contradicted , that the placing of such a poke upon such a colt in such a pasture is not considered dangerous, and that farmers are accustomed so to poke their own horses, but that they are not accustomed to put pokes on or 'hamper' horses owned by other...1883, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Vermont, page 70
  6. (transitive) To thrust at with the horns; to gore.
  7. (informal, transitive, social media) To notify (another user) of activity on social media or an instant messenger.
    • Indeed, when we poke users who normally do not have access to our profiles, they will be able to temporarily see our Basic Info, Work Info, and Education Info.2009, Alexander Tokar, Metaphors of the Web 2.0, Peter Lang, →ISBN, page 68
  8. (transitive) To thrust (something) in a particular direction such as the tongue.
  9. (slang, transitive, vulgar) To penetrate in sexual intercourse.
    • Maj. Cloutier commented to Lt. Clemm, "You know what they say about a girl who smokes: If she smokes, she pokes."1996 November 25, Washington Times quoted in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbshttps://books.google.com/books?id=LPZfi4ADcusC&pg=PA235
    • He chewed her nipples and clitoris until they bled, and poked her until she could hardly walk. Grandpa never got enough sex […]2000, Katherine Jones, Jerry's Nightmare, page 115
    Synonyms:
    drill, nail, pound, Formal terms, bed, coit, coitize, dight, enjoy, feague

Noun (1)

poke (plural pokes)

  1. A prod, jab, or thrust.
  2. (US, slang) A lazy person; a dawdler.
    • The slowness of this stupid poke tortures me to death.1865, Adolphe Belot ·, The Cup and the Lip. A Comedy in Five Acts., page 38
    • To the uninitiated he looked like a slow old poke; but his string would lengthen out in a most mysterious way , and it was the height of our ambition to set as much and as clean a proof as old John.1905, Typographical Journal - Volume 27, page 186
  3. (US, slang) A stupid or uninteresting person.
    • I see you shaking your head at me, mother, and reminding me of 'That mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me;' but I don't believe I go on so; if I have nothing to say I keep still, and you'd better be a stupid poke, which I often feel myself, than waste the time with such trash.1871, Mary Webster McClain, Daisy Ward's Work, page 112
    • She was only sixteen, and he was perfectly splendid, and she has plenty of money, and every one talked about it; and when she went anywhere, people looked, you know, and she liked it; but her papa is an old poke, so he's sent them all away. It's too bad, for she was the jolliest thing I ever knew .1912, Louisa May Alcott, An Old-fashioned Girl, page 20
  4. An old, worn-out horse.
    • It was feared the dear old poke I had been riding could not keep up with the rest on this long day's journey: so I had "the cook's horse," who did not understand my method of pulling my dear old beast's head from the edge of the ravine gently with my bridle.1872, Edward Everett Hale, Old and New - Volume 6, page 686
    • Probably summer residents, and this old poke won't move out of a walk, and I've no whip.1889, Clara Louise Burnham, Young Maids and Old, page 89
  5. (US) A device to prevent an animal from leaping or breaking through fences, consisting of a yoke with a pole inserted, pointed forward.
    • I find from their testimony , which was not contradicted , that the placing of such a poke upon such a colt in such a pasture is not considered dangerous, and that farmers are accustomed so to poke their own horses, but that they are not accustomed to put pokes on or 'hamper' horses owned by other...1883, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Vermont, page 70
    • This yoke or poke will prevent any horse from scaling a fence, if well made.1883, Horace R. Allen, The American Farm and Home Cyclopedia, page 285
  6. (dated) The storage of a value in a memory address, typically to modify the behaviour of a program or to cheat at a video game.
    • […] everywhere you see listings festooned with Goto statements and peppered with peeks and pokes.1984, Electronics & Wireless World, volume 90, page 6
    • One of the major limitations is that the Commodore 64 does not easily support auto-repeat (it must be turned on by a poke instruction from BASIC).1984, Northcon/84, Mini/Micro Northwest-84 Conference Record
  7. (informal, social media) A notification sent to get another user's attention on social media or an instant messenger.
    • It could be described as a poke, but not a friendly one. For those who have not yet succumbed to Facebook, the latest craze on the internet, a ‘poke’ is an electronic greeting sent, for example, to an old friend from university.2007 July 22, David Smith, “Faceoff!”, in The Guardian
  8. A poke bonnet.
    • Well then, I declare, I'd rather see Miss Lawton in that old poke – old as it is! –than in the finest new bonnet the Squire's lady ever wore.1857, William Platt, Mothers and sons, page 190
  9. (slang) A hit, especially an extra base hit.

Noun (2)

poke (plural pokes)

  1. (Appalachia, Southern US, otherwise archaic) A sack or bag, especially a paper bag.
    • poke of reefer
    • And then he drew a dial from his poke,
      And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
      Says very wisely, ‘It is ten o'clock[…]’c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  2. A long, wide sleeve.
    Synonyms:
    poke sleeve
  3. (Northern Ireland, Scotland) An ice cream cone.
  4. (Northern Ireland, Scotland) A bag of chips.

Noun (3)

poke (uncountable)

  1. (dialectal) Pokeweed, and its berries.
    • [W]hen rodents were scarce they ate chestnuts and rhubarb and poke and other wild food[.]1997, Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 103
    Synonyms:
    the list at pokeweed

Noun (4)

poke (uncountable)

  1. (Hawaii) Slices or cubes of raw fish or other raw seafood, mixed with sesame oil, seaweed, sea salt, herbs, spices, or other flavorful ingredients.
    • Though I'd often eaten sashimi, poke was then completely new to me—delicious rubies of cubed fish dressed in light sesame oil, garnished with minced bits of reddish-brown seaweed and the ground centers of kukui nuts (see recipe, next page).2004 October 17, Garrett Hongo, “Poke”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • The fishmonger offered the poke in plastic tubs, without ceremony, just as I had always known it in Honolulu, where I grew up and where some of the best poke is sold at a liquor store, Tamura’s. Then, a few years back, poke started appearing on stray restaurant menus, sometimes identified as...2016 February 4, Ligaya Mishan, “Poke Reaches the Shores of Manhattan”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Proper noun capitalized: Poke

Poke (plural Pokes)

  1. A surname.

Noun (5) capitalized: Poke

Poke (plural Pokes)

  1. (colloquial) A Pokémon.
    • A lot of Japanese Pokemon CCG cards--mostly Fire Pokes, including Charmander and Charmeleon.1999 November 16, <kk...@cornell.edu>, “FA: Anime/Manga items from many series!”, in alt.games.pokemon (Usenet), via Google Groups
    • Head backs lightly and proceed north past the signpost and into the following battle where you'll come across another new Poke, Meditite!2008, Ultimate Nintendo DS Cheats, Codes & Secrets, volume 3, Papercut Limited, via Internet Archive, →ISBN, page 123

poke meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

poke in Hindi

to jab with an object such as a finger or a stick
उंगली करना uṅglī karnā

poke in Tamil

குத்து, தலையீடு

poke in Urdu

بوری, گوجھا, جیب, کھیسہ, کیسہ, تھیلی

poke in Bengali

খোঁচা দেওয়া, গুতো মারা
More languagesFewer languages
poke in Telugu
దూర్చు dūrcu, పొడుచు poḍucu
poke in Malayalam
കുത്തുക kuttuka
poke in Kannada
ತಿವಿತ, ನೂಕುವುದು, ಚುಚ್ಚುವುದು, ತಿವಿ
poke in Odia
ଖେଞ୍ଚିବା kheñcibā
poke in Sanskrit
स्कुनाति skunā́ti, स्कु sku
poke in Assamese
খুচৰ khusor
poke in Tagalog
sundot
poke in Arabic
خَزَّ ḵazza
poke in Persian
سک زدن sok zadan
poke in Vietnamese
chọc

Examples of poke in a sentence

  • The three laugh at him for a slow old poke and go on to their pleasure.2019, Paolo Cherchi Usai, The Griffith Project, Volume 9: Films Produced in 1916-18:
  • Old Fred is the slowest old poke, isn't he?2021, Booth Tarkington, Women:
  • “Only a driver and one old poke riding shotgun.2014, Eugenia Riley, Bushwhacked Bride:
  • Yes, mother, but my horse is such an old poke I was nowhere in the race.2019, Frederic Remington, John Ermine of the Yellowstone:

All 40 example sentences with poke

Synonyms of poke

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of poke

Forms of poke

Verb
third-person singular presentpokes
present participlepoking
past participlepoked
pastpoked
Noun
pluralpokes
alternative formpoké
pluralPokes
Proper noun
pluralPokes

Past tense of poke: poked

Plural of poke: pokes

Origin of poke

From Middle English poken, perhaps from Middle Dutch poken or Middle Low German poken, both from Proto-West Germanic *pukōn or similar, which is itself of uncertain origin, but may be from an imitative Proto-Germanic root *puk-. Doublet of poach. Compare Nordic cognates Swedish påka (“to poke, muck with a stick”), påk (“club, limb; dagger”), pykel (“small poker”), dialectal Norwegian pauka (“to walk stomping, etc”), pauk (“weak, slow person”). Central European noun-cognates refer to “dagger, bad knife, poker (for a fireplace)”, with analog verbs. To a Proto-Germanic *pauk-, *puk-, meanig, “to stick, muck with a stick”.

From Middle English poke, from Anglo-Norman poke (whence pocket), from Frankish *poka. More at pocket. Doublet of pouch. First attested in the early 13th c.

Clipping of pocan (“pokeweed”) or directly borrowed from Powhatan pocan. See pocan for more.

Words formed from poke

Phrases with poke

Words that rhyme with poke

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about poke

What does poke mean?
Poke means to prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.
What is poke in Hindi?
Poke in Hindi is उंगली करना (uṅglī karnā). See Poke meaning in Hindi.
How do you use poke in a sentence?
The three laugh at him for a slow old poke and go on to their pleasure.
What part of speech is poke?
Poke can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce poke?
Poke is pronounced /pəʊk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of poke?
The past tense of poke is poked.

Words near poke in the dictionary

  1. pokable
  2. pokal
  3. pokals
  4. Pokanoket
  5. Pokanokets
  6. poke
  7. poke a dot
  8. poke about
  9. poke along
  10. poke around
  11. poke bonnet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poke (page history and authors); Poke (page history and authors); poke (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); poke (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Poke (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); poke (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ଖେଞ୍ଚିବା (Odia) (page history and authors); स्कु (Sanskrit) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-poke.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-poke.wav.

Cite this entry: “poke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/poke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.