Etymograph

English

poke

Poke comes from Middle English poken ‘to poke’.

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500poken1‘to poke’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1857poke1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English poke
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1857, William Platt, Mothers and sons: “Well then, I declare, I'd rather see Miss Lawton…”.

Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500pokenWiktionary, English poke‘to poke’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1857pokeWiktionary, English poke. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1857, William Platt, Mothers and sons: “Well then, I declare, I'd rather see Miss Lawton…”

The story

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-.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. Central European noun-cognates refer to “dagger, bad knife, poker (for a fireplace)”, with analog verbs.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Middle English poken

Another origin of poke

  1. Frankishc. 250–700*pokareconstructed
  2. Anglo-Normanc. 1066–1400poke
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500poke‘sack, pouch, bag’
  4. Englishtodaypoke

First attested in the early 13th c.

Another origin of poke

  1. Powhatanmodernpocan
  2. English1500–presentpocan‘pokeweed’uncertain
  3. Englishtodaypoke

Another origin of poke

  1. Hawaiianmodernpoke‘section, slice, piece, part, portion’literally ‘to cut crosswise into pieces’
  2. Englishtodaypoke

Borrowed from Hawaiian poke (literally “to cut crosswise into pieces”).

Today it means

verb To prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “poke”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Middle English poken / poke

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