Other forms: poking, poked, pokes
To poke something is to push it quickly with a finger or something pointed. A finger in your ribs to wake you up, a stick poking at a fire, a screen poked twice before it responds.
You poke AT something when you keep doing it, and things poke OUT or THROUGH gaps: a hand poking out of a car window, a nail poking through the sole of a shoe. Poke around means to search through things that are not yours, and it carries a hint of nosiness. Poke fun at someone is to tease them. A poke is also the jab itself — 'he gave me a poke in the arm'. In the old phrase a pig in a poke, poke is a bag, not a push at all.
1verbpokeTo push something quickly with a finger or a pointed object.
“She poked him in the arm to get his attention.”
2verbgapTo push out through a gap, or to stick out.
“A tuft of hair poked out from under his hat.”
3verbsearchTo search through things, especially things belonging to someone else.
“I found him poking around in my desk drawer.”
4nounquickA quick push with a finger or something pointed.
“He gave the fire a poke and the flames rose.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: prod, jab
Poke came into Middle English as poken, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German poken, and there the trail goes cold: the older root is uncertain and may simply copy the sound of prodding. The Nordic relatives keep the stick in view — Swedish påka, to poke or muck about with a stick, and påk, a club. Across central Europe the related nouns mean dagger, blunt knife and fireplace poker.
Proto-West Germanic
*pukōn
Middle Low German
poken
Middle Dutch
poken
Middle English
poken
English, today
poke
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 of the sound Proto-Germanic - root puk-. a doublet of poach#Etymology 2. Compare Nordic cognates Swedish påka (“to poke, muck with a stick”), påk (“club, limb; dagger”), pykel (“small poker”), dialectal Norwegian pauka (“to walk stomping, etc”), pauk (“weak, slow person”). Central European noun-cognates refer to “dagger, bad knife, poker (for a fireplace)”, with analog verbs. To a Proto-Germanic pauk-, puk-, meanig, “to stick, muck with a stick”.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA