Meanings
plural bockeys
- New YorkUSarchaicdialectalA large basket woven from oak splints.
Many augmented their income by making baskets known as “bockeys."
2010, Ronnie Clark Coffey, Harriman State Park, page 172 more examples
The large baskets, called Bockeys (the old Dutch word for basket), used for toting this charcoal, were, I believe, the forerunners of the present-day Adirondack pack basket.
1947 Spring, A. T. Shorey, “Ma and Pa Pitt”, in New York Folklore Quarterly, volume 3, number 1, page 38Even the coming of the New York Thruway and the connections for the Garden State Parkway had failed to alter the setting as an heirloom of troop movements of long ago, of the rattle of early stagecoaches, and of the "bockeys” —these were mountain people who continued to weave baskets of oak splints and bring them down to sell in Ladentown, Rockland County, New York, and perhaps elsewhere.
1983, Henry Charlton Beck, Tales and Towns of Northern New Jersey, page 118
Origin
- Dutchbakkie
- Englishbockey
From Dutch bakkie, bakje, or less likely bokaal (“bowl, cup”).
More words from Dutch
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
bockey. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bockey
“bockey.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bockey. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bockey,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bockey.
Source: bockey on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.