Forms: 1 cammocc, -uc, 1, 4 cammoc, 4–7 cammok, 5 cambmok, chambmok, camok, -oke, -ocke, 6–8 cammock, 7 camock, 9 dial. cammick. [OE. cammoc, generally assumed to be from Celtic, and to be the same word as the next, with a reference to ‘crooked stems or roots’; but the plant is not so named in any Celtic language, and the root is not specially crooked, so that the actual origin remains doubtful.]
The plant Ononis spinosa (N. O. Leguminosæ) also called Rest-harrow, and according to Cockayne, Cammock Whin. Some earlier writers identified it with Peucedanum, and ‘Petty Whin’; but it is not clear what plant or plants they meant.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 209. Ðas wyrte man peucedanum, & oðrum naman cammoc [v.r. cammuc] nemneþ.
c. 1000. O. E. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 300. (Nomina Herbarum), Peucedanum, cammocc.
c. 1050. Glosses (Cott. Cleop.), ibid. 416. Gotuna, cammuc.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIX. 319. For comunelich in contrees kammokes [text C. canmokes] … & wedes Fouleth þe fruite in þe felde.
a. 1387. Sinon. Barthol. (Anecd. Oxon.), 33. Peucedona, i. cammoc secundum quosdam. Ibid., 36. Resta bovis, herba est retinens boves in aratro, an. Cammoc.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxxxviii. (1495), 695. The Cambmok is a pryckynge shrub. Ibid. Of the rotes and of the stalkes of Cambmok is made a medycyn that Physicyens call Licium. Ibid. Chambmok gendreth fyre of itselfe.
c. 1450. Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.), 156. Resta bouis … anglice hyseneherde uel cammok.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. ix. 668. The roote of Restharrow or Cammock.
1579. Langham, Gard. Health (1633), 527. Restharrow, Cammok, or Petywin.
1775. J. Lightfoot, Flora Scot. (1777), I. 386. Prickly Restharrow or Cammock.
1787. Winter, Syst. Husb., 123. The above field contained many cammocks.
2. Vaguely applied dialectally to other plants, as St. John’s Wort, Ragweed, Fleabane, Yarrow, etc.
1878. Britten & Holland, Plant-n., s.v., In Hampshire almost any yellow flower is called Cammock.
3. Comb. Cammock whin = sense 1.
