rocket

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun any vehicle self-propelled by a rocket engine
  2. noun a jet engine containing its own propellant and driven by reaction propulsion
  3. noun erect European annual often grown as a salad crop to be harvested when young and tender

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”).

In classic literature

Synonyms

projectile

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