German Synonyms.—Ezba (= the finger, especially the first or fore-finger. The names of the others are: Godel = the thumb; Ammo = the middle-finger; Kemizo = the ring-finger; Seres, i.e., ‘span’ = the little finger); Griffling (= also the hand. From greifen = to seize). Spanish Synonyms.—Mandamiento (= a commandment: cf., Ten Commandments); tijeras (= the fore- and middle fingers; Minsheu (1599) Dictionarie, tijeras = ‘small sheares, seizers, snuffers.’). Portuguese Synonym.—Medunhos. 1821. Haggart, Life, p. 121. My forks were equally long, and they never failed me. 1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood. ‘Nix my Dolly.’ No dummy hunter had forks so fly. Ibid. Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 20. I’ll give him the edication of a prig—teach him the use of his forks betimes. 1841. Tait’s Edinburgh Mag., VIII., p. 220. My forks were light and fly, and lightly faked away. 1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 9 Feb. Up they came briskly with smiling mugs, shook hands, then stepped back a pace or two, put up their forks, and the spectators were hushed into silence, for they saw that the battle was about to begin. 3. In plural (common).—The hands. 4. (old).—A gibbet; in the plural = the gallows. [fork is often applied to anything resembling a divarication (as of a tree, river, or road), etc.: Cf., sense 2. Cf., Cicero (de Div., i., 26). Ferens furcam ductus est: a slave so punished was called furcifer.] 5. (old).—A spendthrift. 1725. New Canting Dict., s.v. 6. (tailors’ and venery).—The crutch (q.v.), nockandro (q.v.), or Twist (q.v.). [Thus, a bit on a fork = the female pudendum; a grind (q.v.).] Fr., ‘Fourcheure, that part of the bodie from whence the thighs depart.’—Cotgrave. Verb (old).—1. To steal; specifically to pick a pocket by inserting the middle and forefinger. Also to put one’s forks down: Fr., vol à la fourchette. 1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Let’s fork him, c. Let us pick that man’s pocket, the newest and most dextrous way; it is to thrust the fingers straight, stiff, open, and very quick into the pocket, and so closing them hook what can be held between them. 1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. Let us fork him. 1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xvi. Yet so keen was his appetite for the sport, that the veteran appropriator absolutely burst into tears at not having ‘forked more.’ 1878. C. Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. Frisk the Cly and fork the Rag, Draw the fogies plummy. 2. (venery).—To open up, or spread (q.v.). To fork out, or over (sometimes abbreviated to fork). Verb. phr. (common).—To hand over; to pay; to shell out (q.v.). 1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xxxi. The person fork him out ten shiners.