Rocker

How to spell rocker

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rocker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rocker mean?

1. nounA person who plays or is a devoted fan of rock music.
2. nounA chair mounted on curved supports so that it can tilt back and forth.
3. nounOne of the curved strips of wood or metal on which a cradle or chair tilts.
4. nounA pivoting lever or switch in a machine, such as a rocker arm in an engine.

Rocker in a sentence

• The ageing rocker still tours with his original band.

• Grandmother knitted every evening in her worn wooden rocker.

• One rocker had cracked, so the cradle no longer tilted smoothly.

• The mechanic adjusted each rocker before resealing the engine.

• She dressed like a classic rocker in a leather jacket and ripped jeans.

• He sat in the rocker on the porch and watched the rain.

Where does rocker come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word is built on the verb 'rock', which descends from the Old English roccian, meaning 'to move a child gently back and forth', a sense still alive in rocking a baby to sleep. The agent or instrument suffix '-er' was added to name a thing or person connected with rocking, and by the 1600s a 'rocker' meant one of the curved strips of wood on which a cradle or chair tilts. From there the meaning fanned out to the chair itself and to many curved mechanical parts that pivot or tip. In the twentieth century, when 'rock and roll' borrowed the same swaying verb to describe its driving beat, 'rocker' took on the lively new sense of a rock musician or devoted fan. Because the whole family grows from one short, regular root, the spelling stays simple: just remember the single doubled consonant pattern of 'rock' plus '-er'.

How the word is built

• rock (to move back and forth, from Old English roccian)
• -er (agent or instrument suffix)