a. [f. FORK sb. + -Y1.]
1. Shaped like a fork, forked.
[1508. (see FORCY: the sense is not clear).)
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 647.
| In fair Calabria’s Woods a Snake is bred, | |
| With curling Crest, and with advancing Head … | |
| Erect, and brandishing his forky Tongue, | |
| Leaving his Nest, and his imperfect Young. | |
| Ibid. (a. 1700), Ovid’s Met., I. 425. | |
| Parnassus is its name; whose forky rise | |
| Mounts thro’ the clouds, and mates the lofty skies. |
1727. Swift, Circumcision E. Curll, Wks. 1755, III. I. 166. A meagre man with a sallow countenance, a black forky beard, and long vestment.
1762. Falconer, Shipwr., I. 256.
| A skilful marksman o’er his head suspends | |
| The forky prongs, and every turn attends. |
1808. Scott, Marm., I. viii.
| The last and trustliest of the four, | |
| On high his forky pennon bore. |
a. 1851. D. M. Moir, Sir Eliduc, Poet. Wks. 1852, II. 192.
| ‘Oh, tell me why, Sir Eliduc, | |
| Thou peak’st, and pin’st, and roam’st astray?’— | |
| ‘Ask the tree, by the forky lightnings scathed, | |
| Why wither its boughs away!’ |
b. fig. and allusively.
1702. Watts, Epit. Will. III., x.
| Flatt’ry shall faint beneath the sound, | |
| While hoary truth inspires the song; | |
| Envy grow pale and bite the ground, | |
| And slander gnaw her forky tongue. |
1821. Byron, Cain, I. i. 227.
| Lucifer. He but woke one | |
| In those he spake to with his forky tongue. |
2. Comb., as forky-tongued adj.
1727. Watts, Poems (1743), 235.
| Cares never come | |
| With wrinkled brow, nor anguish, nor disease, | |
| Nor malice forky-tongued. |
Hence Forkiness, the condition of being forky.
1611. Cotgr., Fourcheure, a forkinesse.
1766. Pennant, Zool. (1768), II. 242. The house swallow is distinguished from all others by the superior forkiness of its tail, and by the red spot on the forehead, and under the chin.
