Jock

How to spell jock

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce jock

What does jock mean?

1. nounAn informal term for a person who is keen on sport and physically athletic, often one devoted to competitive games.

Jock in a sentence

• Every jock on the football team trained twice a day before the season.

• He was the classic high school jock, more comfortable in the gym than the library.

Where does jock come from?

Language of origin: Other

The word grew out of Jock, the Scottish and northern English pet form of the name John, in much the same way that Jack did further south. From the 1500s onwards Jock served as a stand-in name for any common man, a labourer, or a soldier, rather like calling someone an everyday Joe. In the later 1800s the word also became slang for the male genitals, which is why the protective undergarment worn by athletes came to be called a jockstrap, literally the strap for the jock. From that piece of sporting kit the modern American sense developed in the twentieth century, so that a jock now means a keen and often muscular sportsperson. The spelling stays close to the original name, with the soft -ck ending that English regularly uses after a short vowel, as in rock and sock.

How the word is built

• jock (from Jock, a Scottish pet form of the name John, later generalised to mean an ordinary man or sportsman)