strike

A strike is what happens when the workers all stop at once. No trains for three days, bins piling up on the pavement, a line of people outside the gate with a banner about pay. It is a last resort and it is meant to hurt: nothing moves until somebody at the top gives way.

The verb is older and reaches much further: to strike is to hit, and to hit hard. Lightning strikes a tree, a car strikes a wall, the clock strikes three, and you strike a match by dragging it along the side of the box. Then there is the quiet sense with no hitting in it at all — it strikes me that we have met before, she struck me as nervous, the first thing that strikes you is the smell. Workers go on strike, are on strike and come out on strike, and the past tense is struck, never striked. Add the fixed phrases and the word is everywhere: strike a deal, strike a balance, strike gold, strike while the iron is hot.

Phrases it lives in

• go on strike — stop work as a group to force a change
• strike while the iron is hot — act while the chance is still there
• strike a balance — find the workable middle between two things
• strike a deal — reach an agreement after bargaining, where both sides gave something up

Also practised as

• verbTo hit something deliberately and hard.