Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🛠️ Engine part 🚣 Rowing pace-setter
stroker

stroker

7.8
A person or thing that moves something smoothly and repeatedly, like the rower who sets the team's rhythm
  • noun
  • /ˈstroʊkər/
  • Jargon
translation icon : marcador
  • A skilled stroker in a rowing team can make a significant difference in their performance.

Examples

  • The sweepers, the strokers--

    Where the Boys Are (1960)

  • Then there are the strokers.

    Where the Boys Are (1960)

  • That was the ocean liner that became prominent when Eleanor Holm, the great lady back-stroker, got fired for "drinking champagne." "Beluga Shantung," said Hershel.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • In competitive rowing, the stroker sets the rhythm for the entire crew to follow.

  • The coach praised the stroker for maintaining a consistent pace during the race.

Synonyms

pacer
vsstroker
1 4.1

A person or animal who sets a steady speed for others to follow in a race

sets the rhythm in a rowing crew or moves things smoothly and repeatedly

Antonyms

lagger
1 8.1

A person who falls behind others because they are slower

Surface Forms

stroker singular
strokers plural

Morphology

stroker = stroke (semi-transparent) = stroke + er

The word is built regularly from 'stroke' + '-er', but the rowing-role meaning is somewhat specialized and not fully predictable for all learners.

Etymology

Stroker comes from stroke, which means 'a single smooth movement' as in a 'brush stroke' or a rower's pull. So a stroker is 'one who makes strokes', which fits the rower who sets the rhythm and anything that moves something back and forth smoothly.