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pocked

adjectiveC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Pocked means marked with small hollows or scars. A pocked wall.

It is used of surfaces rather than of skin, where pock-marked is the usual form. A wall pocked with holes usually tells you what happened there.

Definitions of pocked

  1. 1adjectivepockedMarked with small hollows or scars.C2

    “The stonework was pocked all along the lower courses.”

pocked is a quality.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *bew-

  2. Proto-Germanic

    *pukkaz

  3. Proto-West Germanic

    *pokk

  4. Old English

    poc

  5. Middle English

    pok

  6. English

    pock

  7. English, today

    pocked

Built from

  • pocc · Old English — pock; pustule; ulcer
  • *pukkǭ · Proto-Germanic — pock; swelling
  • *bʰew- · Proto-Indo-European — to grow; swell

pock comes 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”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

pocked in the wild

  • The surrounding area is pocked with abandoned silver and gold mines from the nineteenth century.

    Deer Creek Trail (Colorado)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.