rokke

Definite, Native Old English word, with cognates in various Germanic languages (Old Frisian rokk, Old Dutch roc, OHG roc, roch); an Old Icelandic rokkr 'jerkin, outer garment' is attested, but only in a late text and is perhaps < Middle High German. However, Old Danish/Old Swedish rok (Md. Danish rok- in compounds and Md. Swedish rock 'overcoat') suggest that the word existed across North Germanic, though whether it had a long history there or was ultimately borrowed from West Germanic into Scandinavian languages in the high medieval period is uncertain. From a continental Germanic source (possibly Frankish, though perhaps OHG or Old Saxon) cognate with this word, of the form *rok-, plus diminutive suffix, came Old French rochet/rocket (see rocket 1); the same root may even lie behind frock (q.v.), but this is doubtful. It is generally held that the basic Germanic word did not leave a direct reflex in French, however forms such as roché, rochés, rochis in Anglo-French may in fact be forms in singular and plural of a French version of rokke, in which case the basic form would have been roche (which is however not found as a headword in AND); for citations in the present Lexis, see rocket 1 sense 1a which treats them as derived from rochet. A cognate of the Proto-Germanic root may also lie behind Irish rucht and Welsh rhuwch (qqv.), although this is not entirely certain. As well as outer garment, in the OE period it was perhaps be used more generally, if the Ælfrician gloss equating it with toral is a guide; cf. the senses of rocket 1. However see discussion at toral, where the Cornish equation of toral with 'peus gurec' 'woman's tunic' is made. Strangely, the OED has no headword for rocc, rokke in any form, though it does have headwords rocket and rochet. Under rochet n2 OED does mention OE rocc 'overgarment', surviving into ME as rokke, giving the present citation from the Rawlinson collection. There is a considerable gap between the latest OE citations (which are also found in early ME MSS of the thirteenth century) and the late ME attestation of rokke in the Rawlinson poem. It is just possible therefore, that the latter is not a direct continuation of the OE word, but a clipping of ME rocket, or re-borrowing from a continental Germanic language. Irish rocán (q.v.) is possibly a borrowing of the OE word, with native diminutive plural.