rocket
/ˈɹɑk.ɪt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.31 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A projectile.
noun
A projectile.
noun
A projectile.
noun
A projectile.
noun
Example Sentences
- "As Elon Musk returns his focus to his businesses, one of his most important companies just had another setback: A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded in an immense fireball Wednesday during a routine ground test."
- "Asked by Gallup in 1949 whether “men in rockets will be able to reach the moon” within the next 50 years, just 15% said yes. About five years later, confidence in the men in rockets’ prospects had more than doubled to 38%. […] In a Gallup poll conducted near the start of 1955, just 9% said they’d like to go along on the first rocket ship to the moon if asked, and two years later, just 5% said they’d volunteer to be the first one up in a spacecraft."
- "Fernandinho launched a rocket that flew just over. Gundogan's shot hit off Sviatchenko and Gordon and went out. City pressed and pressed."
- "The Burmese nurse who'd gone with her was crying, for which she'd no doubt get a rocket from matron."
- "While Solborg and Lemaigre were dreaming of revolts, Donovan had learned of Solborg’s insubordination and meddling. He sent him a “rocket” ordering him out of North Africa and back to Lisbon at once."
- "Why were the Luddites named efter Ned Ludd? A wee rocket. A wee fucken fairy bampot. A pure hooligan, smashing stuff up. A ned. Ned Ludd."
Etymology
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 (“spindle, spinning wheel”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɹɑk.ɪt/
- British English: /ˈɹɒk.ɪt/
Usage
- British usage
- Slang
- Uncountable
- Countable