Rocket

How to spell rocket

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rocket

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rocket mean?

1. nounA cylindrical projectile or vehicle driven by the thrust of expelled gases, used for fireworks, weapons, or spaceflight.
2. verbTo move upward or increase very quickly and suddenly.
3. nounA peppery salad leaf, also known as arugula, often served raw in salads.

Rocket in a sentence

• noun

  The rocket lifted off the launch pad in a column of flame.

• verb

  House prices began to rocket after the new factory opened.

• noun

  She tossed a handful of rocket leaves into the bowl with olive oil.

• noun

  Engineers spent years designing the new orbital rocket.

• verb

  The runner can rocket from the back of the field in the final lap.

• noun

  The pizza arrived topped with shavings of parmesan and fresh rocket.

Where does rocket come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The projectile sense comes from the Italian rocchetto, meaning 'little spindle' or 'bobbin', a diminutive of rocca, the distaff used in spinning thread. Early firework tubes were named after that shape because the packed cylinder of powder resembled the wound bobbin. The word passed into English in the early 1600s, at first describing fireworks and signal flares, and only much later attaching to powered missiles and the spacecraft of the twentieth century. Confusingly, the salad leaf also called rocket has a completely separate root: it travelled through French roquette from Italian ruchetta, a diminutive of the Latin eruca, a name for a kind of cabbage or cress. So two unrelated plants and projectiles ended up sharing one tidy English spelling. Because both arrived through Italian diminutives ending in a soft sound, English settled them both on the homely '-et' ending seen in words like 'pocket' and 'socket'.

How the word is built

• rocch- (from Italian rocchetto: little spindle/bobbin, named for the cylindrical shape)
• -et (diminutive suffix anglicised)