spoke [OE] In the sense ‘a bar or rod connecting the centre of a wheel to its edge’, spoke is an Old English word, related to *spike. It appears in the slightly puzzling expression put a spoke in someone’s wheel [L16th]. This means ‘to prevent someone from carrying out a plan’, but since wheels are supposed to have spokes it does not appear to make a lot of sense. It is probably a mistranslation of Dutch een spaak in ’twiel steeken, ‘to put a bar in the wheel’—the image that should come to mind is of a bar being stuck into a wheel to stop it turning properly.