The thin rods that connect the center of a wheel to the outer rim, or words spoken aloud.
From Old English 'spaca' meaning 'a thin rod or bar'. Originally only referred to wheel parts, but later 'spoke' also became the past tense of 'speak', creating a homonym in modern English.
The word 'spoke' has two completely different meanings—wheel parts and past tense of speak—and this happened partly because ancient wheel-makers used very old Germanic words that sounded like speech patterns!
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