| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| cockroach |
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| SYLLABICATION: | cock·roach |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  k k r ch |
| NOUN: | Any of numerous oval, flat-bodied insects of the family Blattidae, including several species that are common household pests. | | ETYMOLOGY: | By folk etymology from obsolete cacarootch, from Spanish cucaracha, from cuca, caterpillar. | | WORD HISTORY: | The word for cockroach in Spanish is cucaracha, which should certainly set anyone with an eye for etymology to thinking. Users of English did not simply borrow the Spanish word, however. Instead, they made it conform in appearance to other English words: cock, the word for rooster, and roach, the name of a fish. We do not know exactly why these words were chosen other than their resemblance to the two parts of the original Spanish word. We do know that the first recorded use of the word comes from a 1624 work by the colonist John Smith. The form Smith used, cacarootch, is closer to the Spanish. A form more like our own, cockroche, is first recorded in 1657.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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