The story
- Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*pokk
- Old English · inherited frompoc
- Middle English · inherited frompoke
- English todaypouk
Apparently a dialectal variant of Middle English poke, a variant of pok, pock, pocke, from Old English poc, pocc (“pustule, pimple”), from Proto-West Germanic *pokk. More at pock.
Words from the same roots
Old Englishpoc all →
pock
Proto-West Germanic*pokk all →
pock
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.