stoker:

(plural: ‘stokers‘; for the two different pronunciations of this word, American and British, please click here)

‘to stoke’ (verb) = to stir up, feed fuel, usually coal, to a fire, in a furnace or a boiler; ‘stoking’ = the act of feeding fuel to a furnace

a stoker feeding the boiler of a steam locomotive

(also called ‘fireman’) a worker who is (was) employed to feed coal to keep the fire burning in a fire, especially on a steamship;

a person who feeds, maintains and repairs furnaces and boilers,

stokers or firemen on steamships of the past

e.g.

The life of a stoker on a ship during WW II was so miserable that when the ship was torpedoed or bombed, the stoker down below in the furnace room had no chance of knowing that the ship was sinking, let alone of escaping.

Until recently the steam locomotive engines were run by stream power and the most important worker on the train, only next to the engine driver, was the stoker who fed coal to the steam engine boiler/furnace to burn continuously and make the train go chuff, chuff, chuff…

Most of the stokers or firemen in the furnace rooms of the steamships were tough guys who had a bit of friction with the law or the meek debtors who were afraid of their creditors or those who lost everything for booze or in gambling and wanted to hide from the world.

For a news article that shows us how we come across this word in our daily browsing, please click here, for an article that describes the hard life a stoker of the past, please click here, for an article that shows us how this word pops up in our daily browsing, please click here and a political news article that shows us how this word is used as a ‘flame-stoker’, in a sense other than feeding a furnace, please click here.

Note 1: ‘Stoker’ is more commonly used to refer to a mechanical device that feeds solid fuel, coal or wood, to a furnace/boiler. For an illustrated article that demonstrates the types of stoker boilers, please click here & for an illustrious article that explains the steam engines and stokers on locomotives, please click here.
Note 2: ‘Stoker’, always with a capital ‘S’, is often found in the names of people, e.g. Abraham Stoker, Daisy Stoker, Steve Stoker, etc. For an article that explains the origin of this word as a surname/family name/last name, please click here.