fork [OE] Rather than things to eat your dinner with, forks were originally agricultural implements. The fork used for holding food dates from medieval times, when Anglo-Saxon table manners were presumably affected by Norman ways. The word is from Latin furca ‘pitchfork, forked stick’. A snake’s divided tongue is often described as forked, and snakes have been symbols of deceit since the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. So to speak with forked tongue is to speak untruthfully. People have been forking out, or reluctantly paying money, since the 1830s or earlier. The phrase comes from the earlier literal meaning, ‘to divide or move with a fork’.