Etymology 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”).
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.
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, →ISBN, page 42:
Fluid dynamics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Physics Also used more generally to regulate fluid flow in pipes or vents to prevent turbulence or vortexes.
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Nautical, Transport 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:
But only last night a telephone call roused Mr. Tulloch from his bed—a sheer-strake gone; how long for repairs?1960 June 23, James Kinross, “A Day in the Life of a Port Superintendent”, in Railway Magazine, page 421:
1 more example
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:
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Engineering, Natural sciences, Physical sciences A shaped piece of wood used to level a bed or contour the shape of a mould, as for a bell
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A trough for washing broken ore, gravel, or sand; a launder.
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.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 30:37:
His burning eyen, whom bloody strakes did staine1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
Etymology 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”).