different between pinch vs poke

English

Etymology

From Middle English pinchen, from Old French *pinchier, pincer (“to pinch”), from Vulgar Latin *pinci?re (“to puncture, pinch”), from possible merger of *puncti?re (“a puncture, sting”), from Latin puncti? (“a puncture, prick”) and *picc?re (“to strike, sting”), from Frankish *pikk?n, from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n? (“to pick, peck, prick”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Verb

pinch (third-person singular simple present pinches, present participle pinching, simple past and past participle pinched)

1. To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.

   The children were scolded for pinching each other.

   This shoe pinches my foot.

2. To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
3. To squeeze between two objects.
4. (slang, transitive) To steal, usually something inconsequential.

   Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
5. (slang, transitive) To arrest or capture.
6. (horticulture) To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
7. (nautical) To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
8. (hunting) To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
9. (obsolete, intransitive) To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)

   • 1788, Benjamin Franklin (attributed), Paper

     the wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare

10. To seize; to grip; to bite; said of animals.
11. (figuratively) To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.

    to be pinched for money

    • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

      want of room […] which pincheth the whole nation

    • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

      The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.

12. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
13. (obsolete) To complain or find fault.
    • 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":

      Therefore who so them accuse

      Of any double entencion,

      To speake, rowne, other to muse,

      To pinch at their condicion,

      All is but false collusion,

      I dare rightwell the sothe express,

      They have no better protection,

      But shrowd them vnder doubleness.

Derived terms

• pinch off
• pinch out
• pinch a loaf

Translations

Noun

pinch (plural pinches)

1. The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
2. A close compression of anything with the fingers.

   I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.

3. A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
4. An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:

     It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch.

5. A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
6. An organic herbal smoke additive.
7. (physics) A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament.
8. The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
   • 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:

     It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.

9. (slang) An arrest.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (pinchi)

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: p?k, IPA^(key): /p??k/
• (US) enPR: p?k, IPA^(key): /po?k/
• Rhymes: -??k

Etymology 1

Middle English, perhaps from Middle Dutch poken or Middle Low German poken (both from Proto-Germanic *puk-), which is probably imitative.

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. [from later 14th c.]
2. To stir up a fire to remove ash or promote burning.
3. (figuratively) To rummage; to feel or grope around. [from early 19th c.]

4. (transitive, computing) To modify the value stored in (a memory address).
5. (transitive) To put a poke (device to prevent leaping or breaking fences) on (an animal).

6. (transitive) To thrust at with the horns; to gore.
7. (transitive, informal, Internet) To notify (another user) of activity on social media or an instant messenger.
8. (transitive) To thrust (something) in a particular direction such as the tongue.
9. (transitive, slang, vulgar) To penetrate in sexual intercourse.

Synonyms

• (rummage): fumble, glaum, root; see also Thesaurus:feel around
• (penetrate in sexual intercourse): drill, nail, pound; see also Thesaurus:copulate with

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

poke (plural pokes)

1. A prod, jab, or thrust.
2. (US, slang) A lazy person; a dawdler.
3. (US, slang) A stupid or uninteresting person.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bartlett to this entry?)

4. (US) A device to prevent an animal from leaping or breaking through fences, consisting of a yoke with a pole inserted, pointed forward.
5. (computing) The storage of a value in a memory address, typically to modify the behaviour of a program or to cheat at a video game.
6. (informal, Internet) A notification sent to get another user's attention on social media or an instant messenger.
7. A poke bonnet.

Derived terms

• better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

Etymology 2

From Middle English poke, from Anglo-Norman poke (whence pocket), from Frankish *poka. More at pocket.

Noun

poke (plural pokes)

1. (now regional) A sack or bag. [from early 13th c.]
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 7:

     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…’

   • 1605, William Camden, Remaines Concerning Brittaine, 1629 edition, Proverbes, page 276:

     When the Pig is proffered, hold vp the poke.

   • 1627, Michael Drayton, Minor Poems of Michael Drayton, 1907 edition, poem Nimphidia:

     And suddainly vntyes the Poke,
     Which out of it sent such a smoke,
     As ready was them all to choke,
     So greeuous was the pother […]

   • 1814, September 4, The Examiner, volume 13, number 349, article French Fashions, page 573:

     … and as to shape, a nightmare has as much. Under the poke and the muff-box, the face sometimes entirely disappears …

   • 1946, Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues, Payback Press 1999, page 91:

     In the summertime they'd reach out and snatch your straw hat right off your head, and if you were fool enough to go after it your poke was bound to be lighter when you came out.

   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, page 138:

     She did not eat blood-oranges. Her maw gived her one in a poke and she was going to throw it in the bin, Oh it is all black.

2. A long, wide sleeve.

   Synonym: poke sleeve

3. (Scotland, Northern Ireland) An ice cream cone.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 3

Either a shortening of, or from the same source as, pocan (“pokeweed”) (q.v.).

Noun

poke (uncountable)

1. (dialectal) pokeweed

Synonyms

• see the list at pokeweed

Translations

Etymology 4

From Hawaiian poke (“slice crossways”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?po?.ke?/

Noun

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.

Usage notes

Often typeset as poké to aid pronunciation.

Anagrams

• kepo

Finnish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?poke/, [?po?ke?]
• Rhymes: -oke
• Syllabification: po?ke

Etymology 1

From portsari (“doorman”).

Noun

poke

1. (slang) doorman, bouncer (at a bar or nightclub)

Declension

Etymology 2

From porno (“pornography”).

Noun

poke

1. (slang) pornography

Declension

Ido

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?poke/

Adverb

poke

1. slightly

Maori

Adjective

poke

1. grimy

Middle English

Alternative forms

• pok, poc, puke

Etymology

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman poke.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p??k(?)/

Noun

poke (plural pokes)

1. sack, pouch, bag

Descendants

• English: poke
• Yola: poake, pooke

References

• “p?ke, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Old French

Alternative forms

• poque, pouche, puche

Etymology

From Frankish *poka.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?.k?/

Noun

poke f (oblique plural pokes, nominative singular poke, nominative plural pokes)

1. sack

   E puis les poudrez bien de sel e les mettez ensemble en une poke de bon kanevaz

Derived terms

• poket

Descendants

• ? Middle English: poc, poke, pooke
  • English: poke (regional)
  • Scots: pok, poke, polk, poik

Tocharian A

Etymology

From Proto-Tocharian *pokowjä-, earlier *p?kewjä-, from pre-Tocharian *b?eh???ow-h?en- (definite), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *b?eh???ús (“arm”). Compare Tocharian B pokai.

Noun

poke

1. arm

References

• Adams, Douglas Q. (2013) , “poko*”, in A Dictionary of Tocharian B: Revised and Greatly Enlarged (Leiden Studies in Indo-European; 10), Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, ?ISBN, page 434