cockroach
(ˈkɒkrəʊtʃ)
Forms: 7 cacarootch, 7–8 cockroche, 8 cock-roach, 7– cockroach.
[app. ad. Sp. cucaracha (in Percival 1599) through cacarootch, Capt. John Smith's representation of the Spanish (perhaps representing an older Sp. cacarucha: cf. Pg. caroucha); with assimilation, by popular etymology, to cock and app. to roach.
The Du. kakerlak is prob. also a popular perversion of the Sp.: cf. Creole Fr. coquerache.]
The name of orthopterous insects of the genus Blatta, esp. B. orientalis, a well-known large dark-brown beetle-like insect, commonly called black-beetle, nocturnal in habits, and very voracious, infesting kitchens, etc., in large numbers. Also the American species, B. occidentalis, larger and lighter brown, found in bakehouses.
| 1624 Capt. Smith Virginia v. 171 A certaine India Bug, called by the Spaniards a Cacarootch, the which creeping into Chests they eat and defile with their ill-sented dung. 1657 R. Ligon Barbadoes (1673) 62 Next to these are Cock⁓roches, a creature of the bigness and shape of a Beetle. 1740 Baker Beetle in Phil. Trans. XLI. 443 A Friend had sent me Three or Four Cock-Roches, or as Merian calls them, Kakkerlacæ, brought alive from the West-Indies. 1800 Gentl. Mag. Oct. 933/2 The true brown cock⁓roach of the West-Indies. 1813 Bingley Anim. Biog. (ed. 4) III. 154 The Kakkerlac or American Cock-Roach, is very common in that country. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. iii. (1878) 59 In Russia the small Asiatic Cock-roach has everywhere driven before it its great congener. |
Hence cock-roach apple.
| 1756 P. Browne Jamaica 174 Love Apple and Cock⁓roach Apple..The smell of the apples is said to kill cock⁓roaches. |