▪ I. brock, n.1 Chiefly dial.
(brɒk)
Forms: 1, 4 broc, 3–7 brocke, 4–5 brokk(e, 4–6 brok, 6 broke, 3– brock.
[OE. broc, from Celtic: in OIr. brocc, Ir. and Gael. broc, Welsh and Cornish broch, Breton broc'h:—OCeltic *broccos, prob. cogn. w. Gr. ϕορκός grey, white; cf. the Eng. name gray, grey.]
1. A badger: a name, in later times, associated especially with the epithet stinking.
| c 1000 Sax. Leechd. I. 326 Sum fyþerfete nyten is, þæt nemnað taxonem, þæt ys broc on englisc. c 1205 Lay. 12817 Heo hudeden heom alse brockes. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. (Helmingham MS.) xii. x, The blak rauen is frende to þe foxe, and þerfore he fyȝteþ with þe brokke. c 1400 Ywaine & Gaw. 98 It es ful semeli, als me think, A brok omang men forto stynk. c 1440 York Myst. xxix. 117 He lokis like a brokke, Were he in a bande for to bayte. a 1528 Skelton Agst. Garnesche 55 She seyd your brethe stank lyke a broke. 1552 Huloet, Brocke or badger, or graye beast, taxo. 1637 B. Jonson Sad Sheph. i. iv. 32 Or with pretence of chasing thence the Brock, Send in a curre to worrie the whole Flock. 1786 Burns Twa Dogs 96 They gang as saucy by poor folk, As I wad by a stinking brock. 1816 Scott Antiq. xxi, ‘I..rub shouthers wi' a bailie wi' as little concern as an he were a brock’. 1869 Daily News 30 July, Purses, made of a fox's head and skin, or that of a brock. |
† b. catachr. confused with the beaver. Obs.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden Rolls Ser. I. 327 White beres, bausons, and brokkes [ursi albi, fibri, et castores]. Ibid. VI. 205 Þat place hatte Beverlay and heet Brook his lay, for many brokkes..come þider out of þe hilles. 1483 Cath. Angl. 44 A Brokk, castor, beuer. 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Bivaro, a badger or brocke, fiber, castor. |
2. A stinking or dirty fellow; one who is given to ‘dirty tricks’; a ‘skunk’.
| a 1600 Peele Jests II. 289 This self-conceited brock. 1601 Shakes. Twel. N. ii. v. 114 Marrie, hang thee, brocke. 1725 Ramsay Gent. Sheph. iv. i, Ye'll gar me stand! ye shevelling-gabbit brock. 1880 Antrim & Down Gloss. (E.D.S.), Brock, a dirty person; one who has a bad smell. |
3. attrib. and Comb., as brock-breasted, brock-faced adjs. (referring to the streaked face of the badger); † brock-skin, a badger-skin (in Wyclif app. due to confusion of L. mēles, mēlis, with mēlōta Gr. µηλωτή sheepskin, f. µῆλον); † brock-wool, hair of the beaver (see 1 b.).
| ? a 1400 Morte Arth. 1095 *Brok-brestede as a brawne, with brustils fulle large. |
| 1824 Craven Dial. 22 Th' *brock-faced branded stirk. |
| 1382 Wyclif Hebr. xi. 37 Thei wenten aboute in *brok skynnes [Vulg. in melotis], and in skynnes of geet. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 246 b, Goynge about in gotes & brockes skynnes. |
| 1500 Ort. Voc. in Promp. Parv. 53 Fibrina vestis..a clothe of *brocke woll. |
▪ II. brock, n.2 dial.
[OE. broc; cf. ON. brokkr ‘a trotter, of a horse’ Vigf.]
? A horse, a trotting horse; an inferior horse, a jade.
| c 1000 Sax. Leechd. II. 184 Secen him broc on onrade. c 1386 Chaucer Friar's T. 243 The Cartere smoot and cryde..Hayt Brok, hayt Scot, what spare ye for the stones. 1586 Warner Alb. Eng. ii. x. 47 She stumbled headlong downe..hoyst Brock, her good-man saide; And thirdly falling, kindly bad her breake her necke, olde Iade. 1847–78 Halliwell, Brock, a cow, or husbandry horse. |
▪ III. brock, n.3 dial.
[Of uncertain origin: possibly a corruption of L. brūcus, brūchus: see bruke. The two senses may have no connexion.]
† 1. ? = L. ophiomachus (Vulg. Lev. xi. 22), a kind of locust: cf. bruke. Only OE.
| c 1050 Ags. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 460 Ophiomachus, broc. |
2. The larva of the frog-hopper, which produces the cuckoo-spit; also the insect itself. mod. dial.
| 1788 Marshall E. Yorks. (E.D.S.), Brock, a young grasshopper [2nd ed. 1796 substitutes ‘cicada spumaria, the cuckowspit insect’]. ‘He sweats like a brock!’ 1875 Robinson Whitby Gloss. (E.D.S.), Brock, the cuckoo-spit, ‘sweating insect’, or frog-hopper, the ‘cicada spumata’, found upon leaves in an immersion of froth. 1877 in Holderness Gloss. (E.D.S.). |
▪ IV. brock, n.4 ? Obs.
[contr. of brocket.]
= brocket.
| c 1515 Berkeley Castle, MS. Forester's Acc., Item a brocke at fframtonys parke. 1677 N. Cox Gentl. Recreation i. (1706) 6, I..must call a Hart..The third year, a Brocke. 1781 Smellie tr. Buffon's Nat. Hist. IV. 87 They take the name of knobbers till their horns lengthen into spears, and then they are called brocks or staggards. 1884 Jefferies Red Deer ii. 39 In the olden time he would have been called a brocke or brocket. |
▪ V. brock, n.5
(See quot.)
| 1770 Hasted in Phil. Trans. LXI. 164 In the ancient forests of Kent..remain large old chesnut stubs or brocks. |
▪ VI. † brock, v. Obs. rare.
[Identified by Mätzner with OHG. brochôn, mod.G. brocken to break into bits, crumble (bread into milk), used in Swiss in sense ‘to use coarse words’: but the sense-history is obscure.]
app. To give mouth, speak querulously (perhaps to utter broken language).
| c 1315 Shoreh. 106 Aȝe the crokkere to brokke, Wy madest thou me so. c 1386 Chaucer Miller's T. 191 He syngeth brokkynge [so 6 texts, Harl. crowyng] as a nyghtyngale. |
▪ VII. brock
dial. var. of broke, a fragment.