Tines (; also spelled tynes), prongs or teeth are parallel or branching spikes forming parts of a tool or natural object. They are used to spear, hook, move or otherwise act on other objects. They may be made of metal, wood, bone or other hard, strong materials. The number of tines on tools varies widely – a

pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...

may have just two, a

garden fork A garden fork, spading fork, or digging fork is a gardening implement, with a handle and a square-shouldered head featuring several (usually four) short, sturdy tines. It is used for loosening, lifting and turning over soil in gardening and far ...

may have four, and a

rake Rake may refer to: * Rake (stock character), a man habituated to immoral conduct * Rake (theatre), the artificial slope of a theatre stage Science and technology * Rake receiver, a radio receiver * Rake (geology), the angle between a feature on a ...

or harrow many. Tines may be blunt, such as those on a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

used as an eating utensil; or sharp, as on a

; or even barbed, as on a

trident A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other mar ...

. The terms ''tine'' and ''prong'' are mostly interchangeable. A tooth of a comb is a tine. The term is also used on musical instruments such as the Jew's harp,

tuning fork A tuning fork is an acoustic resonator in the form of a two-pronged fork with the prongs ( tines) formed from a U-shaped bar of elastic metal (usually steel). It resonates at a specific constant pitch when set vibrating by striking it agains ...

guitaret The Guitaret is an electric lamellophone made by Hohner and invented by Ernst Zacharias, in 1963. Zacharias also invented similar instruments like the Pianet, Cembalet and the Clavinet. The instrument itself was not popular, and was dropped from ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'' ...

mbira Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...

which contain long protruding metal spikes ("tines") which are plucked to produce notes. Tines and prongs occur in nature—for example, forming the branched bony

antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on ...

s of

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...

or the forked horns of

pronghorn The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American a ...

antelopes. The term ''tine'' is also used for mountains, such as the fictional Silvertine in ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's bo ...

''. In

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to hav ...

(

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

, non-linear dynamics), the branches of a

bifurcation Bifurcation or bifurcated may refer to: Science and technology * Bifurcation theory, the study of sudden changes in dynamical systems ** Bifurcation, of an incompressible flow, modeled by squeeze mapping the fluid flow * River bifurcation, the ...

diagram are called ''tines'' and ''subtines''.

References

Tools {{Metalworking-stub