Stoker
name, noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A person who stokes, especially one on a steamship or steam train, who stokes coal in the boilers.
"For this was a line so little frequented, especially at this hour, when the driver, the stoker, the guard and the station staffs all along the line, were anhelating towards their wives, after the long hours of continence, that the train would hardly draw up, when it would be off again, like a bouncing ball."
- 2 a mechanical device for stoking a furnace wordnet
- 3 A device for stoking a fire; a poker.
- 4 a laborer who tends fires (as on a coal-fired train or steamship) wordnet
- 5 A device that feeds coal into a furnace, etc., automatically.
"As we reported was to occur, two of Saltley's stoker-fitted 2-10-0s, Nos. 92165/7, have been stripped of their stokers at Crewe works."
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- 6 A person who pedals on the back of a tandem bicycle.
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"The whole school is here seen in epitome: the “stoker” typifies the student toiling at the forge, and in the polished engine, exhibiting both grace and power in its automatic action, we see the student’s graduating project, a machine, the joint creation of brain, eye, and hand."
Etymology
From Middle Dutch stoker (“stoker”), from Middle Dutch stoken (“to stoke, incite”, literally “to poke, jab, thrust”), ultimately equivalent to stoke + -er. More at stoke. Compare typologically Russian кочега́р (kočegár) (akin to кочерга́ (kočergá, “poker”)).
Related phrases
More for "stoker"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.