▪ I. roke, n.1 Now dial.
(rəʊk)
Also 6 Sc. roik, royk, rock; dial. 8 rooac, 9 roac, ro(o)ak, rawk, rauk. See also rook, rouk, rowk.
[Prob. of Scand. origin. The variants roke, rawk, rowk would normally arise from an OScand. *rauk(r), which has been superseded by a form with umlaut (ON. reykr, Sw. rök, Da. r{obar}g): see reek n.1
It seems unlikely that MDu. rooc or MLG. rôk can have had any influence on the word. Icel. and Norw. rok, Icel. roka, ‘driving spray or snow’, which would account for the form roke only, are also unsatisfactory as regards the meaning.]
Smoke, steam; vapour, mist, fog; drizzling rain.
| c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 1163 To-ward sodome he saȝ ðe roke, And ðe brinfires stinken smoke. 13.. Sir Beues 2647 Eueri seue ȝer ones..comeþ a roke & a stink Out of þe water. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 436/1 Roke, myste, nebula. ? a 1500 Battle Otterburn in Child Ballads III. 298/1 Tyll the bloode from ther bassonnettes ranne, As the roke doth in the rayne. 1513 Douglas æneis iii. iii. 95 The rane and roik reft fra ws sicht of hevin. Ibid. vii. Prol. 36 The firmament ourkest with rokis blak. 1535 Stewart Cron. Scot. I. 489 Winter come to hand,..With mist and roik. 1570 Levins Manip. 160/2 Y⊇ Hore roke, pruina. 1781 Hutton Tour to Caves Gloss. (ed. 2) 95 Roke, fog or mist. 1788 W. Marshall Prov. Yorks., Rooac, or Roke, a kind of smoke; a species of mist, fog, or small rain. 1828– in dial. glossaries (Sc. Yorks., Linc., E. Angl., Suss., I. Wight, Wilts.). 1891 Atkinson Moorland Par. 363 Spectacles..are a bother in a thick mist or roke. |
▪ II. roke, n.2 Founding.
(rəʊk)
Also roak.
[Northern dial. roke, rawk scratch, flaw, etc.: see Eng. Dial. Dict. s.v. Rauk.]
A fault in steel.
| a 1890 Michaelis tr. Monthaye Krupp & De Bange 21 (Cent.), The [steel] bar..would be so full of the imperfections technically called ‘seams’ or roaks as to be..useless. 1914 [see lap n.3 2 e]. 1923 Glazebrook Dict. Appl. Physics V. 363/2 Rokes are formed from ingot cracks, blowholes at or near the surface, and certain kinds of surface defect of the ingot, and in the case of rolled bar they are usually radial when examined on a cross-section. 1945 Greaves & Wrighton Pract. Microsc. Metallogr. x. 173 Rokes..consist of fissures..with their surfaces separated by a thin film of scale or other impurity. 1951 G. R. Bashforth Manuf. Iron & Steel II. x. 320 Subcutaneous blowholes, occurring very near the skin of the ingot, may become oxidized during reheating, resulting in the formation of ‘roaks’ and seams in the finished bars or blooms. 1967 A. K. Osborne Encycl. Iron & Steel Industry (ed. 2) 354/2 Rokes. (Roaks.) 1974 P. Wright Lang. Brit. Industry xix. 184 Ingot defects have various names, for instance the roke, into which a surface blow⁓hole rolls out. |
▪ III. roke
obs. form of rock, rook, ruck.
▪ IV. roke, v.1 Now dial.
(rəʊk)
Also 7 roak(e.
[See roke n.1]
1. intr. To give off steam or vapour; to steam; to smoke; to be foggy or misty.
| 1613 Wither Abuses Stript ii. i, The using of Tobacco thus is vaine: I meane in those that daily sit and smoake Alehouse and Taverne till the windowes roake. 1614 W. Browne Shepherd's Pipe i. 132 A sticke, that taken is From the Hedge, in water thrust, Neuer rokes as would the first. a 1700 Ken Edmund Poet. Wks. 1721 II. 109 Her Tables with strong Broths and Sauces rok'd, Which gormandizing and foul Lust provok'd. 1790 Grose Prov. Gloss. (ed. 2) s.v., He roked like a dunghill. 1876 Mid-Yorks. Gloss. s.v., He sweats and rokes like an old horse. 1883 in Hants Gloss. |
2. trans. To expose to smoke. In quot. fig.
| c 1620 Z. Boyd Zion's Flowers (1855) 6 That Gentiles roak't in sin might be respected. |
▪ V. † roke, v.2
in obscure uses.
Perh. varr. of, or errors for, rock, rouk or ruck, and rake.
| a 1400 Sir Perc. 1375 Were thay wighte, were thay woke, Alle that he tille stroke, He made thaire bodies to roke. c 1400 Rom. Rose 1906 The shaft I drow out of the arwe, Roking for wo right wondir narwe. 1418–20 J. Page Siege of Rouen in Hist. Coll. Citizen Lond. (Camden) 33 There leve of Umfrevyle they toke, And in to the cytte the gon roke. |