Forked describes something that splits into two or more separate branches or paths, like the tines of a fork spreading out from the handle.

A river can fork into two smaller streams, each flowing in a different direction. Roads fork when they divide, forcing travelers to choose which path to follow. In Robert Frost's famous poem “The Road Not Taken,” the speaker encounters two forked paths in a yellow wood and must decide which one to take.

Trees have forked branches that split off from the main trunk. Lightning often appears forked as it zigzags down from the clouds in jagged, branching lines. A snake's tongue is forked, splitting into two thin points at the tip.

The word can also describe situations where people face divided choices or where something develops in different directions. When friends have a disagreement and some take one side while others take another, you might say the group has forked into separate camps. In computer programming, when developers take existing software and modify it to create a new version that develops independently, they've created a fork of the original program.

Anything that resembles this splitting pattern, whether roads, rivers, or choices, can be described as forked.