stoker

From Middle Dutch stoker (“stoker”), from Middle Dutch stoken (“to stoke, incite”, literally “to poke, jab, thrust”), ultimately equivalent to stoke +‎ -er. More at stoke.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈstoʊkɚ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈstəʊkə/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊkə(ɹ)

stoker (plural stokers)

1. A person who stokes, especially one on a steamship or steam train, who stokes coal in the boilers.
   • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:

     For this was a line so little frequented, especially at this hour, when the driver, the stoker, the guard and the station staffs all along the line, were anhelating towards their wives, after the long hours of continence, that the train would hardly draw up, when it would be off again, like a bouncing ball.

   • 1960, J.E. Macdonnell, Escort Ship, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, published 1972, page 22:

     He held strongly to the black-ganger's philosophy - what is the use of all the radar and guns and torpedoes if you don't have the engineers and stokers to put them in the right position?

2. A device for stoking a fire; a poker.
3. A device that feeds coal into a furnace, etc., automatically.
   • 1962 April, “Motive power miscellany: London Midland Region”, in Modern Railways, page 278:

     As we reported was to occur, two of Saltley's stoker-fitted 2-10-0s, Nos. 92165/7, have been stripped of their stokers at Crewe works.

4. A person who pedals on the back of a tandem bicycle.

• (fireplace utensil): firestick, poker

• mechanical stoker
• stoker-fired

• fireman

• Kortes, Koster, stroke, tokers, trokes

From Middle Dutch stoker. Equivalent to stoken +‎ -er.

• IPA^(key): /ˈstoː.kər/, (Southern Dutch) [ˈstoː.kər], (Northern Dutch) [ˈstoʊ̯.kər]

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sto‧ker
• Rhymes: -oːkər

stoker m (plural stokers, diminutive stokertje n)

1. stoker, one who stokes fuel
2. agitator, one who sows division or discord

   Synonyms: onruststoker, scheurmaker

stoker m (plural stokers)

1. (rail transport) stoker (item)

• “stoker”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.