Citations:drock

EDD: "A covered drain under a roadway; a small watercourse, a ditch".

• 1895 May 18, Wiltshire Times, page 5:

  The drock there was in a very bad state, the footpath being such that it was almost impossible to get by.

(cf. Citations:drockway and EDD's entries 'drock', 'droke', also cf. 'drook')

• 1852, Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the parish of Ashton Keynes, in the county of Wilts, page 10:

  It is the duty of the surveyor of the highways to keep these ditches clean; but he certainly does not do so. Most of the ditches are in an extremely offensive state. When the mud is thrown on the banks it smells very bad. The village smells very bad after a flood, Many of the present ditches are about 10 feet wide. There was formerly a great deal of stagnant water in the parish, but by lowering the levels of the drocks, and sinking the ditches, this has, in a great measure, been got rid of.

• 1936, Frome rural Distinct Council, annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health, page 2:

  Buckland Dinharn. — The whole of the drainage of this village has been rearranged; the old stone drocks which served as sewers have been replaced by properly constructed sewers, and the highway and land water drains have been disconnected from the sewers and separately dealt with.

• 1967, Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health and Chief Public Halth Inspector:

  This scheme covers the village of Grittleton and replaces a crude system of drocks with no disposal works. a smell of petrol coming, apparently, from the surface water drainage system. It is usually impossible to find the causes of these complaints because no-one knows how many drocks there are, or in which direction they run. In one case we were able to trace the cause to a spillage more than a quarter of a mile . The intermittent occurrence of these complaints suggests that they are due to accidental spillages or to careless throwing of waste petrol or paraffin into a drain or onto ground from which it percolates into a drock. The dangers of petrol/air mixtures in old drains are obvious and I would like to be informed of any evidence of petrol in drains, and of any spillage of petrol or similar products where there is any possibility that it may get into a drain or old drock.

NED does no better than 'a part of a plough'

• 1762, Jethro Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husbandry ... the fourth edition, chapter XIX, page 299:

  Fig. 12. Is the Earth-board, the Notch a b shews the Rising of the Wood, which takes hold of the Edge of the Sheat, to hold it firmer, to which it is fastened by the Holes c and d; and at the other End it is fastened to the Drock, at Hole e. But this Pin, with which it is fastened to the Drock, it bigger in the Middle

• 1801, The Gentleman's Magazine, volume 90, page 986:

  T, in fig. 1, represents part of what is called the drock; a piece of wood about 6 inches wide, 3 deep, and something more than 2 feet long, which is the bottom part of the plough. On the top of the drock is fastened an upright piece of wood called the spidle, the shelve-boards, which are fastened to the drock and spindle, meeting each other in the angular point P.

• 1802, Anthony Florian Madinger Willich, The Domestic Encyclopaedia; Or, A Dictionary of Facts, page 408:

  drock, a piece of wood, that forms the lower extremity of the plough; and which is about six inches in width, three in depth, and rather more than two feet in length. - To the top of the drock is fastened an erect piece of timber

drop?

• 2008, Maxine Alterio, Ribbons of Grace:

  A drock of sweat , possibly the start of a fever, had broken out on his forehead. I pulled his jacket off, despite his protests. His narrow shoulders and compact chest reminded me of Annie's eldest.