strake

See also: stråke

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈstɹeɪk/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪk

Etymology 1

From Middle English strake, from Old English *straca (> Anglo-Latin straca), from Proto-West Germanic *strakō, from Proto-Germanic *strakaz (“straight”). Akin to Old English streċċan (“to make straight, stretch”).

Noun

strake (plural strakes)

1. (archaic) An iron fitting of a traditional wooden wheel, such as a hub component or bearing (e.g., box, bushel), a cleat, or a rim covering.

   Coordinate term: tyre

   • 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 544:

     The separate pieces of iron, forming together the fitting of the wheel, are called strakes, and the great nails by which they are fastened to the woodwork, and which had thick projecting heads, are called strake-nails and occasionally, it seems, cart-nails, great nails, or frets.

   • 1971, George Ewart Evans, Tools of Their Trades: An Oral History of Men at Work c. 1900‎^[1], Taplinger Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 42:

     Iron strakes were the separate plates fitted to a cart wheel before the use of the iron ring or tyre. [Evans was glossing the term as encountered in a ledger entry of 1827.]

2. (aviation) A type of aerodynamic surface mounted on an aircraft fuselage to fine-tune the airflow.
3. (fluid dynamics) Also used more generally to regulate fluid flow in pipes or vents to prevent turbulence or vortexes.
4. (nautical) A continuous line of plates or planks running from bow to stern that contributes to a vessel's skin. (FM 55-501).
   • 1884, Dixon Kemp, A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing (Fourth Edition), pages 13–14:

     With regard to materials, all the frames should be of oak and so should the stem piece, stern post, upper portion of dead woods, knight heads, apron, beams, shelf clamp, bilge strakes, and keelson; the keel will generally be found to be either English or American elm. The garboard strakes are generally of American elm, and it is best that the planking above should be of American elm or oak to within a foot or so of the load water-line, and teak above to the covering board or deck edge.

   • 2003, Erik Larson, “Prologue: Aboard the Olympic”, in The Devil in the White City, Vintage Books, page 6:

     You felt the power of the Olympic's twenty-nine boilers transmitted upward through the strakes of the hull.

5. (engineering) A shaped piece of wood used to level a bed or contour the shape of a mould, as for a bell
6. A trough for washing broken ore, gravel, or sand; a launder.
7. (obsolete) A streak.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 30:37:

     And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut^[sic] tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     His burning eyen, whom bloody strakes did staine

Usage notes

• (nautical): The planks or plates next to the keel are called the garboard strakes; the next, or the heavy strakes at the bilge, are the bilge strakes; the next, from the water line to the lower portsills, the wales; and the upper parts of the sides, the sheer strakes.

Translations

iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel

• Finnish: vanne (fi)

type of aerodynamic surface

• Finnish: evä (fi) (separate), jatke (fi) (extension), uloke (fi)
• French: apex (fr) m, aigrette (fr) f

continuous line of planks or plates in a vessel's hull

• Dutch: huidgang m
• Finnish: laidoituskerros
• French: virure (fr)
• Hebrew: טוּר לוּחוֹת (he) m (tur lukhot)
• Irish: stráice m, easna f
• Maori: rauawa

Verb

strake (third-person singular simple present strakes, present participle straking, simple past and past participle straked)

1. (obsolete) To stretch.

Etymology 2

Verb

strake

1. (obsolete) simple past of strike
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 32:

     Hayle Groome; didst not thou see a bleeding Hind, / Whose right haunch earst my stedfast arrow strake?

   • a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the page number)”, in Fulke Greville, Matthew Gwinne, and John Florio, editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC; republished in Albert Feuillerat, editor, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia (Cambridge English Classics: The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney; I), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1912, →OCLC:

     But, when he strake — which came so thick as if every blow would strive to be foremost — his arm seemed still a postillion of death.

   • c. 1590-1599', Arthur Gorges, Eglantine of Meryfleur

     But when of Eglantine he spake, / His strings melodiously he strake.

Anagrams

• Akters, Kaster, Krastë, Skater, Staker, Starke, Tasker, retask, sakret, skater, staker, streak, takers, tasker, trakes

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English *strāc.

Noun

strake

1. Alternative form of stroke

Etymology 2

From Old English strācian.

Verb

strake

1. Alternative form of stroken

Norwegian Nynorsk

Adjective

strake

1. definite singular of strak
2. plural of strak

Slovak

Noun

strake f

1. dative/locative singular of straka