Sc. Also 6 Iok. [The Scotch equivalent of JACK.]
1. A by-form of the name John; sometimes a generic name for any man of the common people, and thus used in association with Jean or Jenny; also prefixed, like Jack, to other words as in Jock Fuil = Jack Fool. Jock Scott, a kind of artificial fly used by anglers.
1508. Dunbar, Poems, vi. 73. To Iok Fule, my foly fre Lego post corpus sepultum.
a. 1605. Polwart, Flyting w. Montgomerie, 789. Iock Blunt, deid runt! I sall dunt whill I slay thee.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, x. (1880), 350. Jock Scott … is a first-rate killer.
1885. W. H. Russell, in Harper’s Mag., April, 769/2. [They] see him cast a ‘Doctor’ or ‘Jock Scott’ straight as an arrow.
1898. Daily News, 14 March, 4/7. The proverb says, in an optimistic way, that ‘there is a silly Jock for every silly Jenny.’
2. A countryman, a rustic, a clown.
a. 1568. Sempill, in Satir. Poems Reform., xlvi. 61. Scho will ressaif no landwart Jok.
1803. Sir A. Boswell, Poet. Wks. (1871), 15. I ken’t the day when there was nae a Jock But trotted about upon honest shanks-naigie.
Mod. The country Jocks and Jennies at the fair.
