prong
/pɹɔŋ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.80 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A fork (agricultural tool).
Example Sentences
- "a pitchfork with four prongs"
- "a comb with prongs"
- "the two prongs of a river"
- "the second prong of the argument"
- "[…] a tradition is recorded that a man called 'Ralph' resided in this cavern for many years, and, with a prong as his weapon, successively kept the bailiffs at bay."
- "One look at that lifeguard's prong gave me a throbber like a baseball bat — not quite that big, of course, but at least that hard!"
Etymology
From Middle English pronge, perhaps from Middle Low German prange (“stick, restraining device”), from prangen (“to press, pinch”), from Old Saxon *prangan, from Proto-West Germanic *prangan, from Proto-Germanic *pranganą (“to press”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)preng- (“to wrap up, constrict”). Akin to Lithuanian spriñgti (“to choke, become choked or obstructed”), Latvian sprañgât (“cord, constrict”), Ancient Greek σπαργανόω (sparganóō, “to swaddle”), σπάργανον (spárganon, “swaddling cloth”). See also prank, prance, prink.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /pɹɔŋ/
- British English: /pɹɒŋ/