Jock1 Sc.
(dʒɒk)
Also 6 Iok.
[The Scotch equivalent of Jack.]
1. a. A by-form of the name John; sometimes a generic name for any man of the common people, and thus used in association with Jean or Jenny; also prefixed, like Jack, to other words as in Jock Fuil = Jack Fool. Jock Scott, a kind of artificial fly used by anglers.
| 1508 Dunbar Poems vi. 73 To Iok Fule, my foly fre Lego post corpus sepultum. a 1605 Polwart Flyting w. Montgomerie 789 Iock Blunt, deid runt! I sall dunt whill I slay thee. 1867 F. Francis Angling x. (1880) 350 Jock Scott..is a first-rate killer. 1885 W. H. Russell in Harper's Mag. Apr. 769/2 [They] see him cast a ‘Doctor’ or ‘Jock Scott’ straight as an arrow. 1898 Daily News 14 Mar. 4/7 The proverb says..that ‘there is a silly Jock for every silly Jenny’. |
b. A Scottish (or † northern English) sailor; a Scottish soldier or a member of a Scottish regiment; any Scotsman. Freq. as a nickname. slang.
| 1788 Grose Dict. Vulgar T. (ed. 2), Jock,..a jeering appellation for a north-country seaman, particularly a collier. a 1865 Smyth Sailor's Word-Bk. (1867) 413 Jocks, Scotch seamen. 1914 R. Hodder Brit. Regiments 17 ‘The Jocks.’ The origin of this name for the Scots Guards is obvious. 1918 H. Matthews in Murdoch & Drake-Brockman Austral. Short Stories (1951) 242 And he had to admit that some of the Jocks and Tommies from France were fine fellows. 1925 Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 132 Jocks, Scotsmen in general. Men of a Highland regiment. 1930 Blunden De Bello Germanico 17 An interminable stream of displeased and ejaculatory Jocks repeat the act. 1952 ‘J. Tey’ Singing Sands vii. 101 Mr. Mackay had been in North Africa with the Jocks. 1965 New Statesman 16 Apr. 606/3 Why can't the Jocks support their team without dressing up like that? 1968 Scottish Field Feb. 35/1 All the infantry officers..attached tremendous importance to the Scottishness of their regiments. Kilts, trews, bonnets, pipe bands..have helped enormously to make the Jock the man he is. Ibid. 37/2 The Scots Guards could be described as typical Jocks. 1970 G. M. Fraser General danced at Dawn 46 Who knows your Jocks aren't my matelots? |
2. A countryman, a rustic, a clown.
| a 1568 Sempill in Satir. Poems Reform. xlvi. 61 Scho will ressaif no landwart Jok. 1803 Sir A. Boswell Poet. Wks. (1871) 15, I ken't the day when there was nae a Jock But trotted about upon honest shanks-naigie. Mod. The country Jocks and Jennies at the fair. |