prong

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pronge, also prange,^[2][3][4] of uncertain origin.^[5][4][6] The Middle English Dictionary, Etymonline, Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary take it borrowed from Medieval Latin pronga (“pointed tool, prong”),^[2][6][4][7] which the OED records with pranga and branga from the 13th century in British sources and treats as evidence that the English word was already current.^[5] The comparisons point to a Germanic family: Middle Dutch pranghe (“a pinching instrument”), Middle Low German prange (“stake, pole”) and Middle Dutch prangen (“to press, oppress”), the OED's comparisons,^[5] with Middle High German pfrengen (“to press”) and Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌰𐍀𐍂𐌰𐌲𐌲𐌰𐌽 (anapraggan, “to oppress, afflict”).^[4][3][8][9] Orel lists the verbs under Proto-Germanic *pranganą,^[10] and Barnhart compares Latvian brankti and traces the group to Proto-Indo-European *bronk-,^[4] while Merriam-Webster Unabridged compares Lithuanian branktas (“whiffletree”).^[3] Hoad, Partridge and Weekley connect it with pang,^[11][12][13] and a dialect variant is sprong.^[5][11] The OED treats the sense "anguish" separately as a borrowing from Middle Low German pranc (“distress, anguish”) or its Middle Dutch cognate, and the fork as perhaps the same word.^[5] Skeat and the Middle English Dictionary do not separate them.^[9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A pointed instrument: pranges, with which coals are stirred, in the Speculum Sacerdotale of about 1425 (in a later manuscript).^[2][4] The sense of pain or anguish is recorded in 1440, in Capgrave's life of Saint Norbert and the Promptorium Parvulorum,^[2][5] and the first record of a forked tool in the OED is from 1492, in Ryman's poems.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Skeat took the pain and the spike as one word, from a Germanic base meaning to press, nip or push.^[9] Middle English could speak of the pronges of deth and of wommanes pronge, the pain of childbirth,^[2] but this sense was dead by about 1530.^[5] The tool sense took over: first a forked implement such as a hayfork,^[5] which Johnson (1755) glossed simply as "a fork",^[14] then a sharp projection on any tool (1591),^[5] and each point of a table fork, by the 1690s.^[5][6] It extended to spurs of natural objects (1698),^[5] and in the American South and south Midland to a branch of a creek or river (1725).^[5][3] Figurative use, with compounds such as two-pronged, is recorded from 1859.^[5] Slang made it the penis, from 1836 in Green's Dictionary of Slang and 1927 in the OED,^[15][5] and made the verb sexual by about 1940.^[15] In British dialect it kept the sense of a pitchfork, with counties differing over whether it had two or three tines; it could also mean a table fork, especially a silver one, and the fang of a tooth.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – prange, a pointed instrument.^[2][4]
• 1440 – pronge, agony, pain (obsolete by 1530).^[5][2]
• 1492 – a forked implement; a hayfork or pitchfork.^[5]
• 1591 – the sharp or projecting part of a tool or weapon.^[5]
• 1697 – each tine of a fork.^[5] Etymonline says the 1690s.^[6]
• 1698 – a projecting spur of a natural object.^[5]
• 1725 – in the United States, an arm or branch of a creek or river.^[5]
• 1785 – verb, to pierce or pick up with a fork, in Gilbert White's journals.^[5][3]
• 1826 – the compound pronghorn, shortened from prong-horned antelope (1815).^[6][4]
• 1836 – the penis, in slang.^[15] The OED's first record is from 1927.^[5]
• 1859 – figurative uses.^[5]
• 1874 – verb, to furnish with prongs, in Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Each pointed part of a fork; a tine: One prong of the rake had snapped.^[17][3][5]
2. Any thin, pointed, projecting part, such as the fang of a tooth, a point of an antler, or the part of a jewelry setting that holds the stone.^[17][3][5]
3. Used figuratively, as in two-pronged.^[5]
4. (chiefly dialect) A forked implement, especially a pitchfork or hayfork.^[18][3][16]
5. (US, South and Midland) A branch of a creek or inlet.^[3][5]
6. (coarse slang) The penis.^[5][18][15]
7. (obsolete, 1440–1530) Anguish or sharp pain; a pang.^[5][2]

Verb

1. To stab, pierce or pick up with a prong: He pronged a sausage from the pan.^[17][3][5]
2. (coarse slang) To have sexual intercourse with.^[5][15]
3. (rare) To furnish with prongs.^[5]

Word family

• pronghorn
• pronged

Related words

• pang
• sprong
• prangle

Usage notes

The OED lists, separately, a rare prong meaning perhaps a trick or prank, found only in Skelton's Magnyfycence (before 1529), perhaps a variant of prank.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press