means A stoker is the person whose job is to feed and tend the fire of a furnace, boiler, or steam engine, keeping it fueled and burning hot.

from From the verb "stoke," which English borrowed in the 17th century from Dutch "stoken," meaning to feed or poke a fire. The "-er" simply marks the doer, so a stoker is literally "one who stokes." The Dutch root is related to the idea of pushing or thrusting — fitting for someone shoving fuel into a roaring firebox — and the same family gives us "stick." The word came into its own with the age of steam, when ships and locomotives needed human hands to keep the flames fed.