Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use poke in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Poke means to prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick. Example: “I poked about in the rubble, trying to find my lost keys.”

Examples of poke by meaning

verbTo 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

verbTo rummage; to feel or grope around.

  • I poked about in the rubble, trying to find my lost keys.

verbTo 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

verbTo put a poke (device to prevent leaping or breaking fences) on (an animal).

  • to poke an ox

verbTo 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

nounA lazy person; a dawdler.

  • I never saw such an old poke.2015, Theodore Dreiser, Twelve Men: Top American Novels
  • 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

nounA stupid or uninteresting person.

  • "Oh, you old poke, you!1968, Joseph Kirkland, The Captain of Company K, page 237
  • “Only a driver and one old poke riding shotgun.2014, Eugenia Riley, Bushwhacked Bride

nounAn old, worn-out horse.

  • Yes, mother, but my horse is such an old poke I was nowhere in the race.2019, Frederic Remington, John Ermine of the Yellowstone
  • It's not the helo's fault, even if it is clunkier than a stumblebum old poke of a plow horse—bless its rotors.2019, M. L. Buchman, At the Slightest Sound

More sentences with poke

  • As I started to poke it, the snake hissed at me.From the entry hiss
  • Poking one's eye is a good distraction from a hurting toe.From the entry distraction
  • When Peter saw the nail poking up through his foot, he freaked out and started hyperventilating.From the entry freak out
  • We poked a stick into the hornets' nest and ran like mad.From the entry like mad
  • Hey, watch where you're throwing that thing! You could've poked Jeff's eye out.From the entry poke someone's eye out
  • My socks were too small, and frequently needed refootings when my toes began to poke through.From the entry refooting
  • Mum, Jimmy keeps on poking me!From the entry keep on
  • The horse-drawn carriage just poked along.From the entry poke along
  • Place the upper casing on edge and use a spudger to push the keyboard away from the casing, poking the spudger through the holes where the screws were.From the entry spudger
  • If we deposed the princesses, his family members could potentially poke holes in his alibi.2025 October 20, Caroline Davies, quoting Virginia Giuffre, “Prince Andrew tried to hire ‘internet trolls’ to hassle Virginia Giuffre…. From the entry depose
  • A tiny paw pokes out, an itty-bitty murder mitten tipped with filthy sharp claws.2025, Brittany Kelley, Relationship Goals, page 141. From the entry murder mitten
  • One man pointed his finger at another, nearly poking the tip of it into the man’s chest.2020, J.M. Griffin, Who’s Dead, Doc?, Kensington Books, →ISBN. From the entry pointer
  • It’s when an animal’s tongue casually pokes out of their mouth and stays there.2018 March 17, Ellen Scott, “Why cats leave their tongues hanging out”, in The Metro. From the entry blep
  • He walked right up to me, the knife poking him in the abdomen, just above his bulge.2017, Dee Dawning, Extramarital, →ISBN. From the entry bulge
  • Is frying someone's laptop remotely with a killer poke even possible?2015 March 9, Danny Bradbury, “Should we hack the hackers?: Western companies are being fleeced for hundreds of millions by…. From the entry killer poke
  • She moved my rutter so that it was not poking into her.2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 321. From the entry rutter
  • Poking underhanded fun at the contestants live on stage was absolutely inexcusable.2013, Charmaine Ross, Makeover Miracle, →ISBN. From the entry underhanded
  • Keep in mind, though, boner pokes from the big spoon might get in the way of sleep.2013, "The Bardian's Guide To Sharing A Bed", Bard Free Press (Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York), Volume 14, Issue 5, February…. From the entry big spoon
  • Since being discovered, Weird Twitter has been poked, prodded, analyzed and made merciless fun of.2013 November 12, Samantha Bares, “We should appreciate 'Weird Twitter'”, in The Daily Reveille, Louisiana State University, page 9. From the entry Weird Twitter
  • She poked him hard in the ribs with the sword – once, twice, thrice, even fourice.2012, Mark Evans, Bleak Expectations. From the entry fourice
  • You'll run across a few who don't really carefor the 'feddle guvment' poking around.2011, J. L. Bryan, Tommy Nightmare, →ISBN. From the entry feddle
  • Blue cotton jammy bottoms poked out beneath a fastidious white terry robe.2009, Nicole Young, chapter 12, in Kiss Me If You Dare: A Patricia Amble Mystery, Revell, page 103. From the entry jammy
  • “However you explain it, a boss who pokes fun of his subordinates like this is interpersonally insensitive.”2007 March 18, Matt Villano, “Your Manager Is a Bully (but You Aren’t Helpless)”, in New York Times. From the entry interpersonally
  • The gift-giving nature of the exchange feels nice and pokes gently at art world economics.2007 February 3, Holland Cotter, “To Explore Race, Sometimes You Focus on the Explorer”, in New York Times. From the entry nonartist
  • Van Oost casts one in silver (with a hand poking its eyes out).2007 October 10, Roberta Smith, “Going the Way of All Flesh, Artistically”, in New York Times. From the entry formidability
  • Grutas took a stiletto from his belt and poked the tip into Hannibal's legs.2006, Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →ISBN, page 300. From the entry männlein
  • Candace Zamperini: This is my blow poke (she blows) - Blow through it.2004 October 21, 00:56 from the start, in Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, director, The Staircase S1 E6: The Prosecution’s Revenge (Documentary…. From the entry blow poke

Meaning of poke

  1. verb To prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.
  2. verb To stir up a fire to remove ash or promote burning.
  3. verb To rummage; to feel or grope around.

Full definition of poke

Questions about poke in a sentence

How do you use poke in a sentence?
Poke is used as a verb and noun. For example: “I poked about in the rubble, trying to find my lost keys.”
What is a short sentence with poke?
“to poke an ox”
What does poke mean?
Poke means to prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poke (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use poke in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/poke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.