▪ I. cammock1
(ˈkæmək)
Forms: 1 cammocc, -uc, 1, 4 cammoc, 4–7 cammok, 5 cambmok, chambmok, camok, -oke, -ocke, 6–8 cammock, 7 camock, 9 dial. cammick.
[OE. cammoc, generally assumed to be from Celtic, and to be the same word as the next, with a reference to ‘crooked stems or roots’; but the plant is not so named in any Celtic language, and the root is not specially crooked, so that the actual origin remains doubtful.]
The plant Ononis spinosa (family Leguminosæ) also called Rest-harrow, and according to Cockayne, Cammock Whin. Some earlier writers identified it with Peucedanum, and ‘Petty Whin’; but it is not clear what plant or plants they meant.
| c 1000 Sax. Leechd. I. 209 Ðas wyrte man peucedanum, & oðrum naman cammoc [v.r. cammuc] nemneþ. c 1000 O.E. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 300 Nomina Herbarum, Peucedanum, cammocc. c 1050 Glosses (Cott. Cleop.) ibid. 416 Gotuna, cammuc. 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xix. 319 For comunelich in contrees kammokes [text C. canmokes]..& wedes Fouleth þe fruite in þe felde. a 1387 Sinon. Barthol. (Anecd. Oxon.) 33 Peucedona i. cammoc secundum quosdam. Ibid. 36 Resta bovis, herba est retinens boves in aratro, an. Cammoc. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. cxxxviii. (1495) 695 The Cambmok is a pryckynge shrub. Ibid. Of the rotes and of the stalkes of Cambmok is made a medycyn that Physicyens call Licium. Ibid. Chambmok gendreth fyre of itselfe. c 1450 Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.) 156 Resta bouis..anglice hyseneherde uel cammok. 1578 Lyte Dodoens vi. ix. 668 The roote of Restharrow or Cammock. 1579 Langham Gard. Health (1633) 527 Restharrow, Cammok, or Petywin. 1775 Lightfoot Flora Scot. (1777) I. 386 Prickly Restharrow or Cammock. 1787 Winter Syst. Husb. 123 The above field contained many cammocks. |
2. Vaguely applied dialectally to other plants, as St. John's Wort, Ragweed, Fleabane, Yarrow, etc.
| 1878 Britten & Holl. Plant-n. s.v., In Hampshire almost any yellow flower is called Cammock. |
3. Comb. cammock whin = sense 1.
▪ II. cammock2, cambock Obs. exc. Sc.
(ˈkæmək)
Forms: 5 cambok, -oke, -ake, 6 camok, -oke, -ock, -ocke, (7 cambuc(k), 6, 9 Sc. cammock, 9 Sc. camack.
[ME. kambok, app. immediately ad. cambuca, a late L. word (Du Cange cites Papias cambuta, sustentamen vel baculus, flexus, pedum, crocia, and Gloss. Corbeiense, cambuta, baculus episcoporum), app. of Gaulish origin, derived from cambo-, crooked, cam; represented in mod.Welsh by camawg, camog fem. ‘piece of bent wood, the felloe of a wheel’. Cf. also Gaelic camag ‘curl, ringlet, crook,’ and Manx camag ‘crutch, crooked bat or shinty to play hurles, also the game itself’.
But some of the senses of the Manx word may be from Eng.; for the Irish and Gaelic for a bent stick for hurling, shinty, hockey, a golf-club, is camán, caman.]
1. A crooked staff, a crook; esp. a stick or club with a crooked head, used in games to drive a ball, or the like; a hockey-stick; hence, the game played with such a stick.
| c 1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 666 (Nomina Ludorum) Hoc pedum, cambok. 1483 Cath. Angl. 52 A Cambake [v.r. Camboke], cambuca. 1547 Salesbury Welsh Dict., Kamoc, a camocke. 1720 Stow's Surv. (ed. Strype 1754) I. i. xxix. 302/2 People please themselves..some in Hand-ball, Foot-ball, Bandy-ball, and in Cambuck. 1821 Edin. Even. Courant 22 Jan., On Christmas and New Years day, matches were played..at the camack and football. 1885 Inverness 30 Yrs. ago ii. 80 A numerous party played a game of Cammack. |
2. A crooked stick or piece of wood, a knee of timber; a cambrel.
| c 1450 Nominale in Wr.-Wülcker 724 (Nomina domo pertinentia) Hec cambuca, a cambok. c 1510 Barclay Mirr. Good Mann. (1570) B vj, Soone crooketh the same tree that good camoke wilbe, As a common prouerbe in youth I heard this sayde. 1580 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 237 Crooked trees proue good Cammocks. Ibid. 408 If my fortune bee so yll that searching for a wande, I gather a camocke. 1593 Drayton Eclog. vii 62 And earely crook'd that will a Camocke bee. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 815 This tendon..maketh an empty cauity, through which the Butchers peirce their Cammockes to hang the beast vpon in the shambles. |