stroke
Forms
- Plural
- strokes
- present (v1)
- stroke
- past (v2)
- stroked
- past participle (v3)
- stroked
- present participle
- stroking
- 3rd person singular
- strokes
Definitions
1.An act of hitting; a blow, a hit.
- With many a wanton stroke / Her feet disperse the powd'ry snow / That rises up like smoke.
- Singapore plans to cane scammers and scam mules, with mandatory caning of at least six strokes for scammers and discretionary caning for mules.
- Side by side they fought (the Lucies / Were a line for valour fam'd) / And where'er their strokes alighted / There the Saracens were tam'd.
2.A movement similar to that of hitting.
- The bore times the stroke times the number of cylinders equals displacement.
- For the pistons of a four-stroke engine, the exhaust stroke follows the power stroke.
3.An act causing hurt or death, especially when seen as divine punishment.
- The stroke of God, Aduersyte I hyght; / I pluke downe kynge, prynce, lorde, and knyght, / I rushe at them rughly, and make them ly full lowe, / And in theyr moste truste i make them ouerthrowe.
4.A damaging occurrence, especially if sudden; a blow, a calamity.
- Tom's whole soul was filled with thoughts of eternity; and while he ministered around the lifeless clay, he did not once think that the sudden stroke had left him in hopeless slavery.
- The Abp. [Archbishop] of York [John Dolben] now died of yᵉ small pox, aged 62, a corpulent man. […] I looke on this as a greate stroke to yᵉ poore Church of England, now in this defecting period.
1.To draw the horizontal line across the upright part (of the letter t).
2.Followed by out or through: to draw a line or lines through (text) to indicate that it is deleted; to cancel, to strike or strike out.
3.To hit or kick (the ball) with a flowing or smooth motion; also, to score (a goal, a point, etc.) by doing so.
4.Of a rower or a crew: to row at (a rate of a certain number of strokes (“movements of the oar through water”) per minute).
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3571
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English strok, stroke (“blow from a weapon, cut”), from Old English strāc, from Proto-West Germanic *straik, from Proto-Germanic *straikaz (“stroke”), from Proto-Indo-European *streyg- (“to rub, stroke; to shear; to strike”).