n.
(1) 'crowd, company'; (2) 'castle'
(Modern English )Two different identifications have been proposed for <rok> at Cl 1514 ('renkkes in þat ryche rok'), depending on whether it is taken to refer to the men or their location: (1) Morris and GollCl (followed by Anderson) gloss 'crowd' and thus identify rok with MED's rūke, which is always explained as a loan from ON (see Dance 2003: 372, OED3), cp. Icel (17c.) hrúka, Norw ruke, Sw dial ruka 'heap, stack', and OIcel hrúga 'heap, pile; bundle, clump' (see Kroonen for further connections). (2) Menner (followed by Moorman, AW, Vant and Olsen, and by MED and OED) glosses 'castle', a fig. sense of MED's rok(ke (n.1) also found in (c1384) WBible(1) (Dc 369(2)). Lat rocca was initially borrowed into OE, in the compound stānrocc, and then reinforced by the subsequent loan of AF rokke, OFr roke 'block of stone, etc.'.
PGmc Ancestor
(1) *xrūk-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
(1) cp. hrúga 'heap, pile; bundle, clump'
(ONP (1) cp. hrúga (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
(1) Icel hrúka, Norw ruke, Sw dial ruka
OE Cognate
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
D2
(1) MED's earliest citation of this n. is from c1230(?a1200) Ancr. (Corp-C 402), but as Anderson (1514n) notes, the only close parallel to this sense in ME would be DT 7149. (2) MED's sense (d) 'citadel, stronghold, castle' (cp. OED3's sense 5b) is otherwise only attested in ME in (c1384) WBible(1) (Dc 369(2)), but Vant notes it was also common in medieval Lat (see further OED3).
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Cl 1514