strake

Etymology 1

From Middle English strake, from Old English *straca (> Anglo-Latin straca), from Proto-West Germanic *strakō, from Proto-Germanic *strakaz (“straight”). Akin to Old English streċċan (“to make straight, stretch”).

noun

1. (archaic) An iron fitting of a traditional wooden wheel, such as a hub component or bearing (e.g., box, bushel), a cleat, or a rim covering.
   Coordinate term: tyre
   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. 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 544
   Iron strakes were the separate plates fitted to a cart wheel before the use of the iron ring or tyre. [Evans was glossing the term as encountered in a ledger entry of 1827.] 1971, George Ewart Evans, Tools of Their Trades: An Oral History of Men at Work c. 1900, Taplinger Publishing Company, page 42
2. (aviation) A type of aerodynamic surface mounted on an aircraft fuselage to fine-tune the airflow.
3. (nautical) A continuous line of plates or planks running from bow to stern that contributes to a vessel's skin. (FM 55-501).
   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. 1884, Dixon Kemp, A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing (Fourth Edition), pages 13–14
   You felt the power of the Olympic's twenty-nine boilers transmitted upward through the strakes of the hull. 2003, Erik Larson, “Prologue: Aboard the Olympic”, in The Devil in the White City, Vintage Books, page 6
4. (engineering) A shaped piece of wood used to level a bed or contour the shape of a mould, as for a bell
5. A trough for washing broken ore, gravel, or sand; a launder.
6. (obsolete) A streak.

verb

1. (obsolete) To stretch.

Etymology 2

verb

1. (obsolete) simple past of strike
   c. 1590-1599', Arthur Gorges, Eglantine of Meryfleur But when of Eglantine he spake, / His strings melodiously he strake.