English

Noun

strake ‎(plural strakes)

1. (obsolete) An iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel.
   • 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.

2. (aviation) A type of aerodynamic surface mounted on an aircraft fuselage to fine-tune the airflow.
3. (nautical, archaic) 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), page 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.

1. (engineering) A shaped piece of wood used to level a bed or contour the shape of a mould, as for a bell
2. A trough for washing broken ore, gravel, or sand; a launder.
3. (obsolete) A streak.
   • Bible, Genesis xxx. 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.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

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 port sill, the wales; and the upper parts of the sides, the sheer strakes.

Translations

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 tense of strike

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

   • Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

     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.

   • Sir Arthur Gorges

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

Anagrams

• sakret
• skater
• streak
• takers
• tasker
• trakes