Now dial. Also 6 wretchocke, -ecke, 7 -ocke. [f. WRETCH sb. + -OCK. Cf. WRETCHCOCK.] The smallest or weakest of a brood, etc.; a puny fowl; a diminutive person, little wretch.
c. 1529. Skelton, E. Rummyng, 465. The goslenges were untyde; Elynour began to chyde, They be wretchockes [v.rr. wrethocke(s] thou hast brought, They are shyre shakyng nought!
1579. G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 87. Lerned philosophers … are the dryest, leanist, ill-favoriddist, abiectist, base-mind[e]dist carrions and wretcheckes that ever you sett your eie on.
1621. B. Jonson, Gypsies Metam., in Horatius, etc. (1640), 48. The famous Impe yet grew a wretchocke [Heber MS. wretchock], and … for seven years together he was carefully carried at his Mothers back.
1903. R. M. Gilchrist, Beggar’s Manor, 223. She can’t have gone of her own account; the poor wretchock dotes on you.
1905. Eng. Dial. Dict., Wretchock,… the smallest pig of a litter. s. Wor[cester].
