pock

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”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɒk/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɑk/

  Rhymes: -ɒk

pock (plural pocks)

1. A pus-filled swelling on the surface on the skin caused by an eruptive disease.
2. Any pit, especially one formed as a scar

pock (third-person singular simple present pocks, present participle pocking, simple past and past participle pocked)

1. To scar or mark with pits
   • 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:

     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.

   • 2007 February 23, Greg Myre, “Palestinian Universities Dragged Into Factional Clashes”, in New York Times‎:

     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.

• yen pock (etymologically unrelated)