n. An instrument or tool consisting of a handle with a shank, usually of metal, terminating in two or more prongs or tines.n. One of various agricultural tools with the prongs of which loose substances are gathered and lifted, as a hay-fork or dung-fork. See pitchfork.n. Something resembling a fork in formn. One of the parts into which anything is divided by bifurcation; a forking branch or division; a prong or shoot: as, the forks of a road or stream; Clark's fork of Columbia river; a fork of lightning.n. The point or barb of an arrow.n. The bifurcated part of the human frame; the legs.n. A gibbet; in the plural, the gallows. See furca.n. In mining, the bottom of the sump.To raise or pitch with a fork, as hay.To dig and break with a fork, as ground.In mining, to pump or otherwise clear out (water) from a shaft or mine.To become bifurcated or forked; send out diverging parts like the tines of a fork.In mining, to draw out water from a shaft.n. n. In mech.: A pair of teeth or pins standing out from a bar and inclosing a space within which runs the belt of a machine fitted with fast and loose pulleys. By moving the bar which carries the pins endwise the belt can be shifted.n. A piece of steel fitting into the socket or chuck on a lathe, used for driving the piece to be turned.n. A position, in a game of chess, where two pieces are attacked at the same time by a pawn.In chess, to attack (two hostile pieces) with a pawn.