[Parly an adoption, partly a transl., of Da. stookgat, f. stoken to stoke + gat hole.]
1. The space in front of a furnace where the stokers stand to tend the fires; the aperture through which the fire is fed and tended; also Naut. a hole in the deck through which the fuel is passed for storage.
1660. J. Okie’s Lament., xiv. I’le Cunningly retreat again into my warm Stoke Hole [of a brewery].
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xviii. 163. The Stoke-Hole four Inches wide, and six Inches long.
1840. Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl., III. 349/2. The space between the engines and the boilers [of a steamship], usually called the stoke-hole.
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 322. Stoke-hole. A scuttle in a steamer’s deck, to admit fuel for the engine.
1892. E. Reeves, Homeward Bound, 147. Lascars are employed on the decks and Zanzibar men in the stoke-hole.
attrib. 1660. J. Okie’s Lament., vii. They say I am indited,… Would the Inditement was rak’t in my Stoake hole Embers.
2. (See quot.)
1785. Specif. of Phillips’ Patent, No. 1477, That species of … fireplaces commonly called copper holes or stoke holes.
† 3. fig. Obs.
1768. [W. Donaldson], Life Sir B. Sapskull, I. iv. 32. They scower the inside of their flower-pots, at the same time they make a stoke-hole of their throats.
