rocket

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A vehicle or device driven through the air or space by burning fuel.

   The rocket lifted off and headed into space.

2. 2
   verb

   To rise or increase very quickly.

   House prices have rocketed over the past year.

3. 3
   verb

   To move very fast in one direction.

   The car rocketed forward when the driver hit the accelerator.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Rocket, in the projectile sense, comes ultimately from Italian rocca “distaff,” the spindle or stick around which wool was wound, whose cylindrical shape resembled an early rocket. The salad name rocket is unrelated: it came through French roquette from Latin eruca, a kind of cabbage.

From Italian rocchetta, from Old Italian rocchetto (“rocket”, literally “a bobbin”), diminutive of rocca (“a distaff”), from Lombardic rocko (“spinning wheel”), from Proto-West Germanic *rokkō, from Proto-Germanic *rukkô (“a distaff, a staff with flax fibres tied loosely to it, used in spinning thread”). Cognate with Old High German rocco, rocko, roccho, rocho ("a distaff"; > German Rocken (“a distaff”)), Swedish rock (“a distaff”), Icelandic rokkur (“a distaff”), Middle English rocke (“a distaff”). More at rock⁴. For the meaning development, compare fuselage, ultimately from Latin fūsus (“spi…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary