Meanings
present singular third person pocks · participle present pocking · participle past pocked · past pocked
- To scar or mark with pits.
Just next door, at Al Azhar University, a rocket mangled the protective metal bars as it crashed through the windows of the president’s office this month, destroying his desk and pocking his walls with shrapnel.
2007 February 23, Greg Myre, “Palestinian Universities Dragged Into Factional Clashes”, in New York Times1 more example
In and out of the tufts they went, with their eyes dilating; wishing to be out of harm, if conscience were but satisfied. And of this tufty flaggy ground, pocked with bogs and boglets, one especial nature is that it will not hold impressions.
1869, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, chapter VII, in Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor. […], volume III, London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, […], →OCLC, page 111
Synonyms & antonyms
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*bew-
- Proto-Germanic*pukkaz
- Proto-West Germanic*pokk
- Old Englishpoc
- Middle Englishpok
- Englishpock
From Middle English pok, from Old English poc, pocc (“pock; pustule; ulcer”), from Proto-West Germanic *pokk, from Proto-Germanic *pukkaz, *pukkǭ (“pock; swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew-, *bʰew- (“to grow; swell”). Cognate with Dutch pok (“pock”), Low German Pocke (“pock”), German Pocke (“pock”).
More words from Middle English, Old English, Proto-West Germanic
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian пъпка
- пъпка (păpka)pus filled swelling
Chinese Mandarin 痘
- 痘 (dòu)pus filled swelling
Czech neštovice
- neštovicepus filled swelling
Finnish rokko, rakkula
- rokkopus filled swelling
- rakkulapus filled swelling
Polish ropna krosta
- ropna krostapus filled swelling
Spanish vejiga
- vejigapus filled swelling
Swedish koppa
- koppapus filled swelling
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with pock
Cite this entry
pock. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pock
“pock.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pock. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pock,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pock.
Source: pock on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.