To stoke means to tend a fire by stirring it up, adding fuel, and keeping it burning strong. Before modern heating systems, someone had to stoke the furnace or fireplace to keep a house warm, poking at the coals and feeding in fresh wood or coal.

The word extends figuratively beyond literal fires. You can stoke enthusiasm, excitement, or curiosity. A great halftime speech might stoke a team's determination to come back and win. A trailer for an upcoming movie can stoke anticipation among fans. When something stokes a feeling, it feeds that feeling and makes it burn hotter, just like adding logs to a fire.

A stoker is a person whose job is to feed fuel into a furnace, particularly on old steamships and locomotives, where keeping the fire roaring was hard, hot, essential work.