Words - skip - Brewer’s

Fork Out

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Hand over; pay down; stand treat. Fingers are called forks, and this may suffice to explain the phrase; if not, we have the Anglo-Saxon verb feccan (to draw out, to take), and “fork out” would be “fec out.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.